Since this involves hardware and multiple OSs I am not sure where to post this. I'm going for XP though.

This is complicated (to me), so some background:
I had a Compaq in 2000 with ME, on this machine were 3K+ mp3s. In 2002, I got an HP with XP. These were my home machines. In 2004 I got a Dell with some nice programs. I had all the ME hd put into the big Dell case late in 2004. I moved (rather than copying) the mps to the Dell. Then, early Dec. the power spiked at 220 v (it should be 110) and fried both the Dell and HP despite surge protectors and UPSs (one went up with a big bang, the other in smoke!). (Both the laptops survived however). The local electricity dept. are not liable sadly. I live on a small island in the Caribbean and things do not work like in big countries - we have many impromptu power outtages, sometimes half a dozen a day (sometimes weeks go by without one though).

A few weeks ago I had the power supply replaced on the HP as that was available on the island, and the Compaq ME, Dell and HP XP hardrives put into the Dell case. No problems, everything runs fine. Then a week ago I got a blue screen and stop code: STOP: C0000218 (Registry File Failure)
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

I couldn't fix it or boot up in any way, I couldn't change the drive letter to try and boot up from another HD. I don't have the original disks, but I do have an OS CD for XP Compaq or HP. This got me all sorts of places but I was unable to boot up. Computer professional tried one hd at a time in the machine but same result each time. So now I have a generic USB external drive plugging into my HP laptop.

I can find everything from the ME except the mp3 files that were moved. On the HP I cannot find anything from 2005 at all - no recent work. On the Dell its the same, no recent work, a huge 8,000+ book analysis disappeared (I have a not very profitable book shop so I have to do all the work myself, no IT ppl or even secretaries) that I was in the middle of on Excel. This is the only machine I have Excel on. I have Quattro and Word Perfect on the HP and just bog-standard Works spreadsheet on my laptops.

My questions are:
1) is there any way I can get my mp3s back?
2) Can I reformat/reinstall XP from the Operating System CD that came with the HP that is for Compaq as well? If so how do I do this from my lap top (I have two laptops, an HP and a Compaq) The HP is partitioned into E: Recovery and F: Pavillion.
3) I can't use the Excel or Quattro Pro from my laptops - I get a message saying that they aren't configured for Excel. This is a problem because most of my invoices come as Excel. How can I use this program from the portable HD or how can I transfer it to my laptop?
4) If I can't do anything, what should I do? Wipe the hds and use them for storage or what? If so how do I do that?


The only disks I have are the Operating System CDs that came with the HPs, possibly the laptops, I don't know and a Driver and Application recovery disk. The Dell was a 6-month old second hand machine and I don't think I ever had any disks with it. Also an old ME recovery disk.


I hope this doesn't sound as tangled to you as it does to me and that you can help. Thanks very much, Petra