Start menu not opening

[BustaRomeo]

As most of you should now know, my computer has become TOTALLY messed up thanks to my little escapade into the registry, and having messed up everything. I've tried doing a repair installation twice now, and this problem hasn't gone away.

When I put my mouse on any section of the bar that runs along the bottom of the screen (taskbar?), the icon changes to that busy icon (with the hour glass). I can't click on my start button, and I can't right click on the bar at all. I can't click or right click on anything in the part of the bar at the bottom right (system tray?). Please help.

Also, if there is ANYONE out there who wouldn't mind spending a few days helping me sort out all the problems I'm having with XP, that would be great. Thanks.

[BustaRomeo]

OK, now my taskbar has gone completely black seeing as the screensaver came on. Also, my hard drive seens constantly busy trying to do something (red light is always flickering). Any ideas?

[andyms18a]

if you have mesed up your system so bad that a repair install dont work then your only option is a format and reinstall of windows if you have another hard drive or a partition on this drive or can slave the drive to a working computer then you can back up you data if not you will lose all your data

[Markoman01027]

Open up CMD, and type in scanreg/restore and pick a date to where your registry was last safe. Also, I would get regclean from downloads.com or any other registry cleaner, and see if a registry cleaner will solve the problem.

[BustaRomeo]

I decided to format my hard drive completely, seeing as I have no clue as to how to partition it. I've only had this computer for a month, so I thought that there really wasn't any important stuff that I wouldn't be able to get installed onto it again in the future.