Ok here's my problem,
I currently have Win XP Home SP2 on a Dell Dimension 3000. I have had no problems whatsoever until just the other day. I had a power outtage while a crucial windows update was installing. Since then I have not been able to boot into windows in any mode, and receive a BSOD error message of REGISTRY_ERROR stop: 0x00000051. I have tried every method possible to avoid a reformat of the drive, i.e. attempting booting into all safe modes, debug mode, last known good config, tried restoring. I went to the next step and went to the XP cd and attempted to repair windows and reinstall windows however it won't let me even get to the admin login screen for the recovery console, and for the windows installation it gets to the point where it detects previous windows versions and gives me the error message again. Now normally I wouldn't have any problem wiping the drive completely (done too many times with win 98), however we have 2+ years of photos and documents from my son's birth that I cannot lose. Fortunately I have a brand new 200GB slave drive my Mother-in-law's boyfriend gave me that I can install windows on. Also that I keep an extra pc for situations like this otherwise I'd be up a creek without a paddle.

My question is, has anyone encountered this specific problem before? I have spent the last 4-5 hours searching the web for this specific problem and all I have found is fixes that require access to the recovery console at the very least.

to PCHF.

With that power outage, it might have damaged your power supply.
I would suggest replacing the Power Supply Unit.

I would also recommend you get a UPS unit. What is UPS? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia Computer Dictionary. I could prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

No all the hardware is in excellent working condition as I am on the PC now with XP installed on my larger HDD. The first thing I did after this happened was load the utility partition and run a full system hardware check. Everything is working fine now, as the problem was an OS Registry issue.

As for your suggestion, I would get a UPS if I had the money to spend on it, however I do not have all kinds of money to blow as I have a family to provide for and being the sole provider does not make that any easier.