Win2k Gurus- How toast am I here?

[KickerNotch]

Looks like I might have had a serious system crash. I started off with a

STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The Registry cannot load the hive(file):
SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE...
error and in my attempt to repair this completely killed my system to the point where I can not even get into the BIOS nor use the CD drive to boot up.
On the bright side I was planning on buying a new system, on the more serious side how stuck am I in getting data off the drive if even my usual failsafe alternative (Knoppix) can't even boot up?