It's toast. Something in WinXP destroyed the filesystem completely after the registry "restore".

Time to re-install totally from scratch.
Starting with original WinXP, then applying SP1, SP2, and SP3.
Then all of the apps.. assuming we can find the registration info for them..

What a wretched way of life.
I am soooo glad I don't have to use any of this on a daily basis.

-ml