Cannot Re-Install GoW After Hardrive Failure

[ElizLestrad]

I am having serious problems trying to reinstall Gears of War on my PC. The hard-drive that it had been on burned out (litterally) and so all the registry entries for everything on that drive were still in the registry. Fortunaty while I could just go to add/remove programs to get rid of them, I could not for Gears of War.

My first step was to consult the forums here but there were no solutions other than Microsofts own "Windows Install Cleanup". Unfortunatly neither Gears of War nor Windows Live appeared their.

My next step was to search the registry for all entries related to the string "Gears of War" and remove them manually as they were all attached to a hard drive that no longer existed. (With the exception of my DVD drive taking on the former drives letter designation).

So without any registry entries I restarted and tried running the install again but it still says that the games installed. Is there some trick to being able to force it to install regardless of what it thinks?

Also when I do try to install and it says "Do you want to completely remove the selected application and all of its features?" and I say YES, I get the following message:

Error: -1605 This action is only valid for products that are currently installed

[WhiteKnight]

Have you tried tools that clean registry ?.

[ElizLestrad]

Yes I have, there were no registry errors.

[brokenarrow]

If you go into the Add/Remove programs dialogue in Windows and uninstall from there, what happens?

[ElizLestrad]

Like I said, it doesnt show up in Add/Remove Progams and there are no entries in the registry tied to Gears of War or XLive. Im at a total loss.

[Quake1up]

Use windows clean up product again, look for a blank file. No name for it, delete it and that should fix it.

[ElizLestrad]

Nope, no blank files in Windows clean-up. Though I do find it wierd that not every program shows up in it.