backup registry

im in quite a predicament here... i have 2 40 GB hard drives in one computer... the C drive and the F drive. (the F drive was put in this computer from another computer because it would not start properly and now i am trying to back-up my files...) there are 2 questions that i have...

1.) if i backup the registry in the F drive and copy some program folders over to the C for backup purposes... can i put the registry back onto the F drive after i partition it, copy the program folder, and run a registry cleaning program to delete the unneccisary registry enteries to get this program on the F drive again? (i lost the disk and i cant think of any other way)... will this work... im somewhat sure it will but i need to be sure...

2.) how can i backup the registry of the F drive? ive tryed running the regedit program on the F drive but it shows the registry of the C drive

CAN SOMEONE answer these????

Whoof!!!

Might be simpler to get the problem drive where it will boot up. If you are able to think about getting files from it, the physical media must be good so if there is an OS on that drive, it should be possible to rehab it so it will boot.

What was the original problem?

im pretty sure its fully corrupt... it wont boot into regular or safe mode... windows starts... i log in and about a milisecond after it says "loading your personal settings" it restarts...

i really need a clean format anyway... its a 2.6 GHRz AMD athalon XP and its running at the speed of a 500 MHRz... there are so many programs on it the start menu extends 5 columns... in addition to that its riddled with spyware and because of the speed, programs like adaware and spybot just shut down