Sometimes I like to just delete everything in MySQL and start over.  This is easy in Linux when you have the packaged script "mysql_install_db.pl" but we need to do it in Windows too.

After you delete everything in the \data directory, go to the command prompt, from your MySQL \bin directory:

mysqld --skip-grant-tables

Then open a new command prompt in the \bin directory and connect to your instance:

mysql

>create database mysql;

>use mysql;

>\. ..\share\mysql_system_tables.sql

>\. ..\share\mysql_system_tables_data.sql

>exit

Now, shutdown your server daemon:

mysqladmin shutdown

You should be able to restart the daemon:

mysqld

and login as root to begin configuring your permissions:

mysql -uroot