(Help!) The registry cannot load the hive file (Help!)

HELP! (Isn't that what everybody starts their thread with?) Have an inspiron 1000(wife's)

1 1/2 year old and now upon startup have screen that says

STOP:c0000218 Registry File Failure

The registry cannot load the Hive (File)

\systemroot\system32\config\software

or it's log or alternate.

It is corrupt , absent or not writable

Beginning Dump of physical memory

Physical memory dump complete

Contact your system administrator or technical support group for further assistance.

Wife claims she hit ALT CTRL DEL and removed Task Manager (why? I don't know!)

I ran an "OS will not boot" test from the F12 startup option

and came back with IDE Disk S/Ny4gi5644t Read and Verify Errors

Will not boot up in safe mode or any other options.

Is the HD bad, Do I have to do a total re-install, or repair?

Will I lose any existing data?

Any help would be appreciated.