Can a Toshiba installation disk be used in a Dell?

I'm trying to fix a Dell Inspiron 600m with a registry error-- it won't boot. This guy:

stop: c0000218 registry file failure

The registry cannot load the hive (file): \systemroot\system32\config\software or its log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

I'm fairly confident that the easiest fix would be to repair the registry with the installation disk. Unfortunately, we don't have the original disk. However, I do have a disk from a Toshiba Satellite L-35 S2161 with the same version of XP. I know the drivers and such wouldn't work, but could the disk be used to repair the registry in the Dell?

At this point I'm more concerned with getting the data from the hard drive than I am with actually fixing the laptop. I don't think it would be good for a civil engineer to lose all his files.