OK. You guys need to keep two things in mind, in talking with me.

#1 - I know a thing or two about computers. But I don't know a thing or three. This makes me very, very dangerous. I won't be at all insulted if you switch to "for dummies" mode (tho I really don't like someone being a jerk because sometimes I can be a bit thick )

#2 - I have never, ever, ever used linux. I used a unix-based internet provider back in 1994? 95? for a year or three, and had to type commands for a few things. If it's similar, some things might come back. If it's not. ahh well. I'll learn a new thing.

Here's my situation. Norton Internet Security apparently did what the AV portion was designed to do and deleted windows/system32/config/system - which is apparently a rather essential registry bit. The fact that the "Security" portion did not keep me very secure led the good Symantec folks to issue me a full refund of my money. (aside: looking for good AV/firewall recommendations, please pm)

With this file missing, Win XP Home SP2 cannot boot. I cannot whip out my handy Windoze CDs to reinstall, because I don't have them. My laptop came with RESTORE disks. Toshiba gave me terrible advice (just copy the missing file from someone else's computer.....duhhhh.... you CAN'T ) and I've wasted two days trying to track down a solution.

A guy on the MS newsgroup recommended knoppix as a potential solution. If I can boot the computer from knoppix, then I can access the files I need to back up, and either email, or offload to a thumb drive, or even set up a network to another computer. Then I can go ahead and just reformat the hard drive, start from scratch.

That said -

Problem # 1 - I spent the afternoon DLing knoppix (even on dsl, it's slow!). I have a 700mb disk, and it won't fit. I thought I saw something in the FAQ but I can't find it now. Is there a way to do it?

#2 - I don't get what to do with the other two files. PGP has always seemed rather mysterious.... yipes.

#3 - I've been reading this article (Computer First Aid) and I think I get most of it (Surprising. Maybe dangerous. :P ) I think that I understand, from the knoppix documentation and the article, that Kn comes WITH the web browsers and free email programs? I'm thinking that will be the easiest way to take care of things, zip and send to my gmail account.

Can you think of anything else I will need to know? Is there anything I haven't told you, that you need to know?

Thanks for any help you can give.