Vista system screwed - please help!

Hi A few days ago, my external hard drive containing a backup of my vista user area folder, suffered a 'corrupted master file table' . In the middle of trying to fix this: (I wasnt doing anything dodgy to my system, just formatting my external usb drive)

The computer now wont load up properly. Normal startup reults in a plain lightish blue screen with mouse cursor after login. Lots of hard drive activity for about 10 minutes then nothing. Ctrl Alt Del doesnt have any effect or Ctrl Shift Esc. Mouse and keyboard working fine since can login.

Trying safe mode loads the safe mode desktop with the black screen with the white writing in the corners you would expect but no taskbar or start button. Lots of hard drive activity as before then nothing.

I have downloaded vista recovery disk from:http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/
It loads the recovery options, 'fix startup' runs and doesent find any problems. System restore to the earliest restore point (about a week ago) has no effect. Have tried different restore points. Still got access to the command console from here I gues so theres hope?

Thanks for reading, so is there any way I can recover from this without format and reinstall?