S
Saerain
I enjoy installing operating systems. I enjoy upgrading operating systems. I
hate reinstalling operating systems.
I'll make the story as brief as possible: during my last session in Vista,
the pump responsible for cooling my processor died. I have a temperature
monitor open at all times, so I quickly noted the rising temperature and
began to shut down. However, unbeknownst to me, Windows Update had downloaded
five updates that required rebooting to complete their installation, so as I
initiated the shut-down process, Vista faded to a screen which said very
emphatically:
Installing Updates
Please do not shut down or restart your computer.
Or something to that effect. The processor was then at 70C and rising at
0.33 degrees per second -- I knew that if I waited for these five updates to
install, it would surely severely overheat. So I forced the shut-down.
Needless to say, Vista now will not boot. It throws a 0xc000014c error about
C:\Windows\system32\config\system at me. 'Registry file is missing or
corrupt.'
At first, I tried my installation disc, a Vista Home Premium Upgrade disc,
trying to run a startup repair, but the startup repair function on that disc
insisted that I was running a different version of Windows Vista. Nonsense.
So I assumed that it being a mere 'upgrade' disc was the issue and used my
wife's Vista Ultimate disc to run a startup repair. It ran, but it did not
correct the error.
So, my first question is: Is reinstallation my only option at this point or
is there something I'm missing with the startup repair?
My second question is: Assuming I do reinstall, without reformatting, what
am I certain to lose, aside from registry entries for installed software? Are
e-mails in Windows Mail preserved?
Endless thanks for your time.
hate reinstalling operating systems.
I'll make the story as brief as possible: during my last session in Vista,
the pump responsible for cooling my processor died. I have a temperature
monitor open at all times, so I quickly noted the rising temperature and
began to shut down. However, unbeknownst to me, Windows Update had downloaded
five updates that required rebooting to complete their installation, so as I
initiated the shut-down process, Vista faded to a screen which said very
emphatically:
Installing Updates
Please do not shut down or restart your computer.
Or something to that effect. The processor was then at 70C and rising at
0.33 degrees per second -- I knew that if I waited for these five updates to
install, it would surely severely overheat. So I forced the shut-down.
Needless to say, Vista now will not boot. It throws a 0xc000014c error about
C:\Windows\system32\config\system at me. 'Registry file is missing or
corrupt.'
At first, I tried my installation disc, a Vista Home Premium Upgrade disc,
trying to run a startup repair, but the startup repair function on that disc
insisted that I was running a different version of Windows Vista. Nonsense.
So I assumed that it being a mere 'upgrade' disc was the issue and used my
wife's Vista Ultimate disc to run a startup repair. It ran, but it did not
correct the error.
So, my first question is: Is reinstallation my only option at this point or
is there something I'm missing with the startup repair?
My second question is: Assuming I do reinstall, without reformatting, what
am I certain to lose, aside from registry entries for installed software? Are
e-mails in Windows Mail preserved?
Endless thanks for your time.