Problem with laptop harddrive boot

I think my laptop's harddrive has failed, however to replace it I would need the recovery "CD" which is on a partition on the failed hard drive

It's a Sony VGN-S560p with XP Pro
Whenever I boot it freezes while loading windows, flashes a blue screen of death for 1 second, and restarts.

I took a picture of the blue screen and it reads:

STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
\SystemRoot\System32\Config\Software
or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.​

If I boot in safe mode it gets up to windows\system32\drivers\Mup.sys, hangs there for 10 secs, shows the blue screen, and then restarts.

My questions are:
Where can I download a (free) recovery for this laptop? The manufacturer's website only has drivers available.

What would I need to buy so that I can read the contents of my stricken laptop harddrive using my desktop PC?

:***

 

Hey 'oldskool, can you lend a copy of an XP install disc?

If not, does your lappy have a floppy drive?

If it does, go to the link below and DL the boot discs, and you will be able to get into the recovery console and fix this error --> http://www.computerhope.com/boot.htm

 

Usually you get to the recovery partition of the hd by pressing some key combo before windows even loads. Check the documentation on Sony's site to see what you need to press to start the recovery.
It sounds like your hd is okay, just something in windows is fubared.

 

I may be mistaken, but unless it has been set-up as an option at boot [which i doubt it has]

It is gonna have to be booted from an extenal source.

Q
(i do hope im wrong though )

 

I did some research and found that if you hold the F10 key during the boot it will run the recovery directly off the partition. I ran it and no errors appeared. I have to do a scandisk to check for bad sectors but so far it is working flawlessly!

~Q~
Last year I bought a Dell recovery CD with Win XP but all the drivers were wrong and I had to download the correct ones from Dell.com. Once I installed the new drivers everything started working... if I find it I'll let you know.

 

If you have done a successful recvery dont worry about those discs [although keep them handy for future reference]

Glad to help... and remember once it is all sorted MAKE A RESTORE POINT!

Q