Basically, I cannot boot to the OS.

Did memtest86, HDD Regenerator, only found 1 bad sector which was repaired. No hardware problems yet.

Powering on PC gets past BIOS fine, goes black right before the Windows loading progress bar normally comes up.

Using the HD in another machine works fine, (though I get the Delayed Write Failed error when accessing the formerly-bad sector).

Using the Windows install CD which I've used in the past for recovery console doesn't come up this time, it only tries to install Windows, I cannot get to recovery console. Booting to a floppy, I can't see any drives besides A:\

What can I do besides format and re-install? Could be a file system problem, but what is there to do besides run scandisk (had lots of sector unreadables) from another PC?

Try booting into safe mode, or last know good configuration by holding down your F5 / F8 key during the boot process

I try safe mode, but it pauses on various dll's...every time I load up the HD on another machine and remove these DLL's, it just pauses on another one

last good configuration still goes to black screen, does nothign after that, same as attempting to boot up normally

Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD

My original idea wouldn't work I don't think. It involved copying hte Windows directory from the good drive to the bad drive. But I think some of the key files would be in use, even in Safe Mode...

You could try putting in the CD with the bad drive plugged in as a slave. Then see if you could copy all the system files from there to the bad drive's C:\Windows directory.

if you are eraseing all the dll files that it gets stuck on then thats a bigger problem then we had to begin with ! just because it sticks on a dll doesnt mean that file is bad. somehow you will have to replace all the files you erased and then replace the file that did this to you in the first place. it is very hard to fix that kind of problem without useing the pc you are working on. plus how did you run memtest without windows? when you put the drive in the other pc , are you booting to that drive or just useing it as a slave? when you do the re-install of the OS it will give you the option to "leave all files in tack" that way you could at least save alot of documents...

I booted memtest with a memtest-specific boot floppy

Yes, when I put that Bad HD in another PC, I am using it just as a slave, data drive. I use the good pc's regular boot hd, which has no problems.

I suppose I can install XP on a new partition of the bad HD and see what happens...

Though everytime I put in the XP Install CD (never goes to recovery console), after it finishes loading files it just pauses and never goes anywhere. Could be the HD is bad or worse...

I am giving Bart's PE a try, though I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it once I burn a CDR of it.

Can I install XP on a new partition on a used HD without formatting it?