Cannot completely login to W2K after Ghost

[K Guralnik]

I recently had to ghost my W2K system because I thought
that my original disk was going bad. After the GHOST, I
booted my new disk and was able to log in with no
problems. Since then, I have reformatted my original
disk and now, on the new system disk, I cannot completely
log in. I get the login screen, enter my usernanme and
password... I then get "loading settings..." and then
almost immediately get "saving settings..." and then I
get the login screen again. I have tried this using safe
mode as well as normal. I tried deleteing the
pagefile... now it tells me that it is missing or bad
before loading and saving settings. I have also tried
using the original CD to repair anything that may be
bad. And finally, I have tried logging into my own
account, as well as the administrator account.

Nothing changes... Any thoughts?

Thank you.
..

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I recently had to ghost my W2K system because I thought
that my original disk was going bad. After the GHOST, I
booted my new disk and was able to log in with no
problems. Since then, I have reformatted my original
disk and now, on the new system disk, I cannot completely
log in. I get the login screen, enter my usernanme and
password... I then get "loading settings..." and then
almost immediately get "saving settings..." and then I
get the login screen again. I have tried this using safe
mode as well as normal. I tried deleteing the
pagefile... now it tells me that it is missing or bad
before loading and saving settings. I have also tried
using the original CD to repair anything that may be
bad. And finally, I have tried logging into my own
account, as well as the administrator account.

Nothing changes... Any thoughts?

Thank you.
.

This typically happens when hard disks are changed. Before you
change disks, delete any inappropriate or non-existing devices
as per Step 2 below.
1. From dos, copy userinit.exe to all the other hard drives
This should allow you to log in.
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/MountedDevices/:
delete all keys which look like "\DosDevice\<DRIVE_LETTER>:"
3. Point KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/Current Version/
Winlogon/Userinit to the correct location of userinit.exe

See also http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=249321

 

[k guralnik]

Thank you... I was able to borrow my friends system to
connect to my registry and make the changes... I can now
log in...