Re: Corrupted Registry and Unable to Boot

Harris <Harris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on Sat, 28 Jul 2007:

Finally, what is a Bart PE boot CD? I will
Google for additional info.

To answer your question, I exported the entire registry with regedit as a
.reg file.


Hi Harris

I doubt you'd be able to use the .reg file you made to restore your
registry. Importing it won't delete any new entries added since you made
the export and you could end up with an absolute mess. As Pegasus said,
a .reg file isn't really much use as a backup.

However, don't despair :-) If you had System Restore turned on you can
retrieve copies of working registry files from a restore point with a
bootable "live" CD such as Bart PE, Ultimate Boot Disk for Windows or
Knoppix and you don't have to worry about using the Recovery Console or
what type of XP installation you have. Can you get a friend to let you
use his/her computer to make one of these? I've used the following
method twice recently to rescue a friend's PC and it worked beautifully.
This is what you need to do:

Once you have your bootable CD:

1) Boot the non-working machine from the CD and use its file manager to
create a temporary working folder. The navigate to the folder System
Volume Information in your HD root directory.

This will contain one or more folders called "_restore {a lot of letters
and numbers in here}". If you have more than one, choose one that was
created before you had the problem.

2) Double-click to open your chosen folder and you should see several
subfolders with names of the form "RPnnn". Again, be sure to choose one
with Create and Modify dates before the problem arose. Open this and
you'll see another subfolder named Snapshot. This is where copies of the
registry files are stored.

3) Copy these 5 files (usually the first 5) to the working folder you
made at step 1:

_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM
_REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT

In the working folder, rename the copies respectively SAM, SECURITY,
SOFTWARE, SYSTEM and DEFAULT.

4) Navigate to the folder C:\Windows\System32\config and delete the
existing files called SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, SYSTEM and DEFAULT. Now
copy the new files from your working directory here. Close all windows,
shut down and remove the boot CD from the drive.

5) You should now be able to boot the PC. Once you get into Windows, I'd
strongly recommend a final step -- do a System Restore, obviously
choosing a restore point from before you had the problem (a day or two
before is good). The reason for this is that registry information on
other users won't have been replaced yet, and also System Restore will
roll back drivers etc. if one of those has caused the PC not to boot.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes :-) Oh and P.S: once you have your
computer up and running again, may I recommend ERUNT for registry backup
and recovery? Then you'll never have to go through this again!
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

--
Nightowl
.

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