XP BSODs and reboots after desktop loads

My brother's laptop has been infested with one of the nastiest malware i've ever encountered. Safe mode, of course, does NOT load, it BSODs there. Most web sites do NOT load, or re-direct to FAKE sites. Msconfig, regedit, and taskman will NOT load. What's worst, the menu to show hidden files, via Tools-> Folder Options has VANISHED, so they are NOT shown! Add/remove programs will NOT run, nor will Firefox. Now, after i deleted some gibberish named .exe files, XP just BSODs and then restarts, right after the desktop appears. He has A LOT of stuff on his lappy, so format is NOT an option, at least not yet. I think the problem is when the malware loads up on startup, some part of it is missing, and it BSODs. I told my bro to press and hold the SHIFT key, to see if he can by-pass startup apps, i have NOT heard from him since then. He does NOT have an XP CD's, boot CD's or the like. I tried "Debugging mode" and "Last Known Config" but it did NOT help. What else can be done?

Thanks in advance.

 

Some help would be great....

 

Most laptops (unless they're expensive) support 1 HD max. I know of an IDE adapter for Desktops, but the laptop drive is SATA. What should he do at recovery console, and what distro of linux do you suggest to use?