Appreciate any help in restoring C:

[G-Artist]

MSI motherboard
2 WDC 120 gig HD's
AMD dual processor.

Foolishly, I over pruned my bloated registry and upon
re-boot I had no desktop icons.

So I grabbed my slipstreamed copy of XP Home (it has
SP2 on it) and did a repair/install. That went fine until the
final reboot where a box popped up telling me I had to
'activate' (no 30 days). I chose to do so. After sitting doing
nothing for a while I got a screen which allowed me to choose
to log on as Administrator or as me. No matter what I chose,
be it logging on as whomever, choosing activate or choosing
'no activation' it was a continuous loop.

Since I have two exact same HD's, each with an equal partition,
I mirror my C: to D: every couple of weeks in case of a crash.
D: will boot. My drives were A, C, D, E, F with G being my CD/DVD

Went to the BIOS and told it to boot from D: It did. It made the
old D: drive C: and the old C: drive D: according to Windows Explorer.

Probably a foolish move but using ERUNT I copied the backup
drive's (which is now C registry and put it on what used to be C:
hoping it would get me out of that loop. That worked, sort of.

Problem is, going back into the BIOS and trying multiple dozens of
times I could not get the computer to boot from the original C:. It kept
booting from the old D: (now C.

So I opened the case and disconnected the old D:. The computer did
boot but it is basically unusable as this drive (original C is still being
recognized as "Local Disk (D. All my icons point to C:\whatever so
not much runs.

I'd sure appreciate any assistance in getting the C: designation properly
restored and w/o having to reformat.

Thanks....

 

[milleron]

MSI motherboard
2 WDC 120 gig HD's
AMD dual processor.

Foolishly, I over pruned my bloated registry and upon
re-boot I had no desktop icons.

So I grabbed my slipstreamed copy of XP Home (it has
SP2 on it) and did a repair/install. That went fine until the
final reboot where a box popped up telling me I had to
'activate' (no 30 days). I chose to do so. After sitting doing
nothing for a while I got a screen which allowed me to choose
to log on as Administrator or as me. No matter what I chose,
be it logging on as whomever, choosing activate or choosing
'no activation' it was a continuous loop.

Since I have two exact same HD's, each with an equal partition,
I mirror my C: to D: every couple of weeks in case of a crash.
D: will boot. My drives were A, C, D, E, F with G being my CD/DVD

Went to the BIOS and told it to boot from D: It did. It made the
old D: drive C: and the old C: drive D: according to Windows Explorer.

Probably a foolish move but using ERUNT I copied the backup
drive's (which is now C registry and put it on what used to be C:
hoping it would get me out of that loop. That worked, sort of.

Problem is, going back into the BIOS and trying multiple dozens of
times I could not get the computer to boot from the original C:. It kept
booting from the old D: (now C.

So I opened the case and disconnected the old D:. The computer did
boot but it is basically unusable as this drive (original C is still being
recognized as "Local Disk (D. All my icons point to C:\whatever so
not much runs.

I'd sure appreciate any assistance in getting the C: designation properly
restored and w/o having to reformat.

Thanks....

Did you obtain and use ERUNT ONLY after the crash? If you had it
installed BEFORE the crash, then you'd have serial copies of the
Registry on the original C: If that's correct so far, I'd think that
you could install the original C: to it's original connector, remove
the original D:, and set the BIOS to boot from removable media. You
could then boot from UBCD4Win or a BART's and run ERDNT.exe from the
appropriate folder.

If you did not have ERUNT prior to the crash, I think you could boot
with Partition Magic 8 or the free GParted, and change the name of
that drive from "D:" to "C:" Even those programs might require you to
change the "Active" designation before renaming (and change it back to
Active afterwards), but, either way, it should work. I think it's
worth a shot, assuming that NOTHING on the original C: has been
changed aside from the Registry and that the Registry it now has would
work IF the drive bore the Drive Letter C:.

Ron

 

[M.I.5¾]

MSI motherboard
2 WDC 120 gig HD's
AMD dual processor.

Foolishly, I over pruned my bloated registry and upon
re-boot I had no desktop icons.

I know it's too late for you, but for anyone else thinking of embarking on
this enterprise - make sure you have backups of the two registry files.
That way, if it doesn't work out you can at least gety back to where you
started. Better still make sure you have a useable backup of the whole
system.

 

[milleron]

MSI motherboard
2 WDC 120 gig HD's
AMD dual processor.

Foolishly, I over pruned my bloated registry and upon
re-boot I had no desktop icons.

So I grabbed my slipstreamed copy of XP Home (it has
SP2 on it) and did a repair/install. That went fine until the
final reboot where a box popped up telling me I had to
'activate' (no 30 days). I chose to do so. After sitting doing
nothing for a while I got a screen which allowed me to choose
to log on as Administrator or as me. No matter what I chose,
be it logging on as whomever, choosing activate or choosing
'no activation' it was a continuous loop.

Since I have two exact same HD's, each with an equal partition,
I mirror my C: to D: every couple of weeks in case of a crash.
D: will boot. My drives were A, C, D, E, F with G being my CD/DVD

Went to the BIOS and told it to boot from D: It did. It made the
old D: drive C: and the old C: drive D: according to Windows Explorer.

Probably a foolish move but using ERUNT I copied the backup
drive's (which is now C registry and put it on what used to be C:
hoping it would get me out of that loop. That worked, sort of.

Problem is, going back into the BIOS and trying multiple dozens of
times I could not get the computer to boot from the original C:. It kept
booting from the old D: (now C.

So I opened the case and disconnected the old D:. The computer did
boot but it is basically unusable as this drive (original C is still being
recognized as "Local Disk (D. All my icons point to C:\whatever so
not much runs.

I'd sure appreciate any assistance in getting the C: designation properly
restored and w/o having to reformat.

Thanks....

Did you ever get this problem resolved?

 

[JohnO]

I know it's too late for you, but for anyone else thinking of embarking on

this enterprise - make sure you have backups of the two registry files.
That way, if it doesn't work out you can at least gety back to where you
started. Better still make sure you have a useable backup of the whole
system.

BTDT, and it's good advice. In REGEDIT, it's File > Export. Save this in the
root of C:\ so you can get at it easily.

Or, make copies of the files in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG, but that has to
be done from recovery console. Or maybe Safe Mode, I didn't check that.

-John O

 

[G-Artist]

Did you ever get this problem resolved?

Sorry for the delayed reply but spent all weekend on this and part
of today. Before I continue, I do wish to thank you for the suggestions.
I was perplexed and needed to know what to do and what not to
do and what *should* work.

To start, while I had ERUNT I only had it because it looked like a
nifty/handy utility but I never used it...so no solid reg backup.

I made a CD from GParted but it was all greek to me when it booted.
Nothing like the pics on the website. So I ran down to the office supply
store and picked up Partition Magic. That changed the drives and my
first boot was successful and everything worked. I did make a Bart's PE
but I am crossing my fingers I'll never have to use it.

It went downhill from there.

After checking sound, video, etc. to be sure everything was up to snuff,
I then went to Windows Update and found I had to get 86 installs.
Since it was bogging a bit I took them a dozen at a time. I sure got
tired of hearing the boot music.

After getting them all, I found that shortly after each boot I got a SVCHOST
APP error (I can't even guess what program triggered that) which on the
Net (Google) seemed common but no real fix.
Had no sound when playing sounds (like WAV/MP3 or video (AVI) but
still had the boot sounds. I found the error message (dealing with a
codec) but a protracted Google search didn't give me a fix. I did install a
slew of codecs but that was no help. Then I had IE problems mostly MSHTML.
So, I did another repair / install (just finished) and am trembling with the
thought of having to go back and reinstall all the security stuff. One or two
of those 'updates' caused me total grief. I don't know which ones or I'd
skip them. One thing I will not do is download the MS media player
updates, I'll stick with classic as it works and I dislike the MS one anyway
as it has horrible graphics and 'feel'. Oh, and several programs I
downloaded after the 'upgrade' wouldn't install and to think the only
Website that had the fix for that was either Norton or Symantic (I forget
which), neither of whom has a product I'd ever have on my computer....MS
has pages of fixes and none worked. Go figure!

A problem I currently have is that a lot of my icons now point to the D:
drive instead of C:. It will be a chore to manually edit them all. Do you
know of a utility I can use to handle that as a batch?

Again, sincerely appreciate the kind direction you gave me.

 

[G-Artist]

Forget the request on a utility. There weren't that many
designated as starting from D:.

 

[milleron]

Sorry for the delayed reply but spent all weekend on this and part
of today. Before I continue, I do wish to thank you for the suggestions.
I was perplexed and needed to know what to do and what not to
do and what *should* work.

To start, while I had ERUNT I only had it because it looked like a
nifty/handy utility but I never used it...so no solid reg backup.

I made a CD from GParted but it was all greek to me when it booted.
Nothing like the pics on the website. So I ran down to the office supply
store and picked up Partition Magic. That changed the drives and my
first boot was successful and everything worked. I did make a Bart's PE
but I am crossing my fingers I'll never have to use it.

It went downhill from there.

After checking sound, video, etc. to be sure everything was up to snuff,
I then went to Windows Update and found I had to get 86 installs.
Since it was bogging a bit I took them a dozen at a time. I sure got
tired of hearing the boot music.

After getting them all, I found that shortly after each boot I got a SVCHOST
APP error (I can't even guess what program triggered that) which on the
Net (Google) seemed common but no real fix.
Had no sound when playing sounds (like WAV/MP3 or video (AVI) but
still had the boot sounds. I found the error message (dealing with a
codec) but a protracted Google search didn't give me a fix. I did install a
slew of codecs but that was no help. Then I had IE problems mostly MSHTML.
So, I did another repair / install (just finished) and am trembling with the
thought of having to go back and reinstall all the security stuff. One or two
of those 'updates' caused me total grief. I don't know which ones or I'd
skip them. One thing I will not do is download the MS media player
updates, I'll stick with classic as it works and I dislike the MS one anyway
as it has horrible graphics and 'feel'. Oh, and several programs I
downloaded after the 'upgrade' wouldn't install and to think the only
Website that had the fix for that was either Norton or Symantic (I forget
which), neither of whom has a product I'd ever have on my computer....MS
has pages of fixes and none worked. Go figure!

A problem I currently have is that a lot of my icons now point to the D:
drive instead of C:. It will be a chore to manually edit them all. Do you
know of a utility I can use to handle that as a batch?

Again, sincerely appreciate the kind direction you gave me.

So these shortcuts actually got changed from the way they were, Right.
When that drive label was changed from D: to C:, all those shortcuts
were correct, weren't they? You said "everything worked" at that
point. I don't see how they got changed after that.
Partition Magic used to come with a utility called Drive Mapper that
took care of changing INI files, Registry entries, and shortcut
pointers (LNK files) when you changed the name of a drive. (I really
know nothing about the program.) PM would sometimes utilize Drive
Mapper automatically without user intervention when changing the drive
letter, and that may be what caused these problems. At any rate, I do
not think it will help now, but you might explore the PM CD to see if
Drive Mapper is there and if it might be able to batch-convert your
LNK files. I don't know of any other utilities that do that. At any
rate, even if you have to do all of them manually, compared to the
weekend of computer hell you just went through, it will seem
relatively easy.
I don't understand why the 86 Windows Updates were necessary. Your C:
drive was the original D: which was mirrored weekly from your original
C:. It therefore had all the Windows Updates that had been applied
prior to the accident. Right?

Ron

 

[G-Artist]

So these shortcuts actually got changed from the way they were, Right.
When that drive label was changed from D: to C:, all those shortcuts
were correct, weren't they? You said "everything worked" at that
point. I don't see how they got changed after that.
Partition Magic used to come with a utility called Drive Mapper that
took care of changing INI files, Registry entries, and shortcut
pointers (LNK files) when you changed the name of a drive. (I really
know nothing about the program.) PM would sometimes utilize Drive
Mapper automatically without user intervention when changing the drive
letter, and that may be what caused these problems. At any rate, I do
not think it will help now, but you might explore the PM CD to see if
Drive Mapper is there and if it might be able to batch-convert your
LNK files. I don't know of any other utilities that do that. At any
rate, even if you have to do all of them manually, compared to the
weekend of computer hell you just went through, it will seem
relatively easy.
I don't understand why the 86 Windows Updates were necessary. Your C:
drive was the original D: which was mirrored weekly from your original
C:. It therefore had all the Windows Updates that had been applied
prior to the accident. Right?

Ron

I assume the reason for the all those updates was the
repair / install I performed. MS updates seemed to list
those since the time I made the slipstream disc. (?)

I SHOULD have used the PM utility that maps the drive
but didn't because I didn't understand what it did and quite
frankly didn't take the time to thoroughly read the manual.
What I found was that only the files I ran while using the D:
drive as C: had the icons changed to reflect D:.

One slight change is bothering me and I wonder if you have any
ideas about it. That is on start-up. My MSI splash screen that
shows which allows me time to hit 'delete' to enter the bios used
to be up for about 3 seconds. Now it just flashes (1/2 second)
and then I see a bar (with hash marks | | | | | | | | |) at the bottom
of my screen upon which a solid bar covers them - similar to many
install screens which show progress. I assume that is what the
MSI splash screen originally covered up. Anyway you know
of to lengthen that? I did go to their Website and found an update
to the BIOS but that didn't change the time of display.

Thanks.

 

[milleron]

I assume the reason for the all those updates was the
repair / install I performed. MS updates seemed to list
those since the time I made the slipstream disc. (?)

I SHOULD have used the PM utility that maps the drive
but didn't because I didn't understand what it did and quite
frankly didn't take the time to thoroughly read the manual.
What I found was that only the files I ran while using the D:
drive as C: had the icons changed to reflect D:.

One slight change is bothering me and I wonder if you have any
ideas about it. That is on start-up. My MSI splash screen that
shows which allows me time to hit 'delete' to enter the bios used
to be up for about 3 seconds. Now it just flashes (1/2 second)
and then I see a bar (with hash marks | | | | | | | | |) at the bottom
of my screen upon which a solid bar covers them - similar to many
install screens which show progress. I assume that is what the
MSI splash screen originally covered up. Anyway you know
of to lengthen that? I did go to their Website and found an update
to the BIOS but that didn't change the time of display.

Thanks.

It's a BIOS thing. I have no insight into that one. Sorry.