edit registry w/o Win 7?

I killed my Win 7 installation. Big time! I used a partition utility to extend the size of the active partition, to give Win 7 a bit more breathing room.
Then it would barely start, got worse until it would not start at all. Nope not Safe Mode either.
Post disaster research turned up a suggestion of tweaking the registry to delete the value for

HKey_local_machine\system\mounted devices

so that windows could take advantage of the additional space.

1. is this a reasonable trouble shooting step?
2. is there a way to start machine from another drive I know works (xp) then get to registry settings on the (now slave) Win 7 installation I managed to kill?

Moderator, if I chose the wrong sub-forum, please move my post.
thanks,
GranPaSmurf

Granpa Smurf,

Now you know to come here and ask for suggestions before you stump you toe on a Win 7 problem.

First, we have to get you system working correctly again.

The easiest way is, as Rich suggested, choosing a System Restore point from a time before the problem occurred.

Read this tutorial completely, from start to finish, and follow the procedure given therein.
System Restore - How to use

If after that, you still don't have a stable system, then there are more drastic actions we can recommend.

AFter your system is stable, then we can approach the desire to change partition sizes.

Hey! I left it ticking while I went off for shower, came back to the log-in screen! First time in days! Gotta' leave for the day, I will leave it running. Maybe you guys can pace me through getting it more stable now that W 7 is running. Yeah!

Thanks, but the partition holding the W 7 installation does not have enough space for repair install. Only 1.27 GB free.
dk

Please post your disk management output.
Follow this procedure:




HOW TO POST A SNAPSHOT OF DISK MANAGEMENT DISPLAY

Run disk management:
WIN | type DISKMGMT.MSC | ENTER
WIN is the key with the wavy flag.

Maximize the output of Disk Management:
ALT Spacebar key combo | X key
Drag the field separators (such as between Status and Capacity) to show entire field.

Make a snapshot:
WIN | type SNIPPING | ENTER
Click the New button.
Drag the cursor around the area you want to snip.
File | Save as | select save location and name | Save button

Post the snapshot:
Screenshot - How to post

karlsnooks,
Thanks for your patient guidance. Disk Management .png is attached. Disk 0 is an older IDE 80 Gb. Disk 1 is a new SATA 1 Tb. The plan was to copy/move the partitions from Disk 0 to Disk 1, ultimately leaving Disk 0 unpartitioned as C: I used a EASEUS utility to copy D: to J:, then I expanded C: into a bit of unallocated space. That's when my project started to go south.
You will also see the 300 Gb external Maxtor, I plan to use it for backups for the 4 computers in my network.
Thanks again.
dk

Good the snip explains much.l

Now If you remove all disks except for disk 0, that is disconnect all drives except for your old disk 0,
Does the system boot?

Your problems can be solved. Just do me a big favor and stay away from partitioning and formatting software until the problem is fixed.

I'm back online now so you will receive immediate responses.

karl