Windows Crashed - won't reboot

Step 1
Download favorite Linux ISO on friends computer and install to Windows box.

Ok, Now that I got that out of my system. My experience with registry hacks of the type you are talking about are not worth the time involved. It is best to do what you did, and reinstall Windows.

UNLESS, you have a registry backup. I have been making registry backups for years with Spybot Search & Destroy. I do this when I set up a new windows system, and the last thing I install is Spybot. When it is run for the first time it will ask if you want to make a backup of the registry. This is for Spybot's use if it screws up, but the net afect is that I have a good backup of my install.

Unfortunatly, you may not have used Spybot on this box recently. Short of that there is only one other course of action I know to reccommend.

Boot the old system on the new drive. Press F8 to get the safe mode menu. One of the options is to fix something and it is for domain controllers only. I forget the exact text. It is about 1/2 of the way down the safe mode boot menu.

If you can get it to at least boot to safe mode you might try several of the registry fix tools available.

As far as the registry goes, it sounds like it has a hole in it. Which will be hard to fix. OH, don't reuse that old HD either. It is probably failing.

Registry Repair Links (I cannot vouch for any of these tools):

http://pc-system-utilities-software-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.registryrepair.net/
http://www.easydesksoftware.com/
http://www.winguides.com/registry/registry-repair.php
http://www.pctools.com/registry-mechanic/

While it is technically possible you will most likely spend far less time reloading the system with all of the software involved.

What I would advise you to do is Slave the old drive and copy all your data off it and once you have all of your data and any downloaded programs stored in a Temp Folder junk the affected drive. What it sounds like has happened here is that the red write heads have come into contact with the platters and caused physical damage to the platters so it is impossible to recover the data stored on that area of the platter.

If you had System Restore turned on it might be possible to get a copy of the registry from there that works but this is very unlikely. Problems like this always take a lot of time to work through and very rarely have a good outcome.

But if you really want to waste a lot of your time and effort you can try to recover a saved copy of the Registry from where the System Restore has saved to and try from there. From past experience I've not found them to be much use particularly if the HDD in question has suffered physical damage as this is very rarely confined to just one small area of the HDD.

Col