Ajay! Thanks so much for this. In fact, I was just logging on here to say I fixed the problem - in a similar way as you are suggesting but perhaps slightly better or at least easier. Recluse had suggested searching for a viable System Restore file. You can use the Recovery Console to do the task from a command prompt, although I decided to build a UBCD disk first and at least be able to recover files if necessary. UBCD is a rescue disk built on BartPE, but with lots of utilities and tools.

UBCD has a file manager, so after booting from that disk I took a look at the System Volume Information directory, which has a _restore folder with all System Restore points saved, each in a series of "RPxx folders", where xx is a number. The RP folders have a Snapshot subfolder, and in each of those are _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM and _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE: Your HIVES.

I picked RP restore point files dated a couple days ago prior to the driver and hard drive install and copied the hives over to the Windows\system32\config folder. Renamed the current SYSTEM and SOFTWARE hives .bak - you never know! And then deleted the _REGISTRY_MACHINE_ wording to end up with hopefully viable SYSTEM and SOFTWARE hives. AS far as I know, they do not have any visible extensions/ Just SYSTEM, SOFTWARE.

Took out the UBCD disk and rebooted normally. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least on the surface everything appears back to normal. Networking, drives accessible, a few quick programs I tried.

So this might help others who end up in this fix, to have a series of options starting with the least loss of your current working install, moving down from there. Of course smart guys have backup images and the likeand don't live dangerously!

Thanks to all of you for all your helpful information and advice. I learned a lot from you guys. Events like this push back the hidden dragons of destruction and turn what used to be the threat of a full Windows reinstall into a minor remedy.

That UBCD disk is sure a handy tool to have. To build the iso/disk, you do need your Windows install disk, or some luck that the right files from install disk are saved on your drive somewhere.

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

Cool as dude I am saving this topic to a file and printing it out so if i am ever daft enough to do it again i will not have to reinstall.Touchwood.WOOD!! DAMMIT!! WHERE'S SOME WOOOOOOOD!

Great news, and thanks for sharing your solution!
Keep your flu to yourself next time, leave the pc out of it. LOL

Flu is lasting longer than the "flu"! But at least one is cured

So any advice on the nForce motherboard driver upgrade? In order to format the entire Black Caviar drive, that's a must. However I was able to format just under 1 TB of it as a logical drive. The wimpy approach might be to avoid messing with this board's drivers again, as everything has worked just fine in the past. The $82 for a 976 gig drive is not a horrible deal. But it bothers me not to be able to fully use this 1.5 TB drive!

I've backed up the hives from several recent System Restore points, so if the exact same thing happened - same kind of corruption - I could recover. Not sure whether other things *could* have been corrupted though, besides the system hive (andpossibly the software hive, although that probably was ok).

my last resort woulda been to re-inflate the Drivers from the DVD or system dll cache.

make an Image backup, then try to update the nvidia drivers again:

If it gives you the option to de-select drivers,

DONT INSTALL - Ethernet Driver (v60.24) "WHQL"
DONT INSTALL - WinXP IDE SataRAID Driver (v6.91) "WHQL"
DONT INSTALL - WinXP RAIDTOOL Application (v6.91) "Sedona"

These should be fine:
SMBus Driver (v4.57) "WHQL"
Installer (v5.17)
WinXP IDE SataIDE Driver (v6.91) "WHQL"


Everything Else looks good.

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/P6N-Diamond.html#/?div=Driver&os=XP%2032

Skate - does the infamous NAM firewall Network Access Manager come as part of this driver package, and CAN be eliminated? Uninstalled prior to the new drivers being installed? Or is it a separate software package from the nForce drivers?