Restore Registry

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Guest

I have a copy of the registry, made by using the backup state functionality of the native backup utility. My question: what do I do with it

Tonight my computer failed to boot, with the error NTLDR missing. I tried to do the reinstall of Windows that leaves your settings intact. So my computer booted with the newly installed system, but the system is ignorant of the files that still exist on the computer. I know the files exist because the Search Companion can find them. But I guess the registry is what hooks them up to the Start Menu. So my hopeful assumption is that when I get some sleep I can somehow use the backued up system state that's on my hard disk to re-establish these connections. If not, its not a disaster, because I backed up the datafiles with third party software

However, since this is a fresh install of Windows, and I have Windows Basic, I don't have the native backup utility running yet. I'll have to recollect how I got it up in the first place. Any hints would be much appreciated

So, can I somehow connect my backup of the registry to the system? Would it actually be easier just to reinstall everything, which is actually rather a hassle? And finally, if my Windows disk is 4 months old, I'm thinking maybe there were additional service packs--I think there were. Do I need to procure those before even considering recovering the registry, as the registry would reflect the more advanced service pack

srdiamond
 
The Unknown P,

Thanks for the heads up. With those issues looming I decided not to try to
restore the files on my disk. Instead, I fell back on a second line of
defense--I had made a copy of my disk using Achronis TrueImage. The copy is
a few months old, but that doesn't matter much, since I have a data backup
less than 24-hours old. Actually two copies, when on CD, compliments of
Relative Rev backup and another at an online backup site. Achronis restored
the system and the old files successfully, although it took a couple of
hours, proceeding sector by sector.

What I need to understand now is what I should have done instead of the
repair install. I didn't want to call Dell because I got probably bad advice
the last crisis, when they told me I had to reformat my disk merely because
Windows was corrupted. I did remember one failed effort they suggested,
although not its details. There's some procedure for Windows to check the
registry and correct errors. That's what I had tried to accomplish, but
apparently I selected wrongly. Could you refer me to where that procedure is
described? Is that the procedure I should have tried, had I known how?

A related question is where to store the backup of the registry that NT
Backup provides. It seems silly, obviously, to store it on my hard disk, but
it is a large file, taking more than one CD. Or, did I backup too much,
under the system state rubric. NT Backup has various options, and not
knowing which was appropriate, I chose the most inclusive. My disk isn't
large by today's standards, only 40 GB, half unused. So if the system state
is unusually big, the size of my stuff isn't the reason.

Thanks for your help. Without it I probably would have tried to recover the
lost system, and then the problems would have exceeded my knowledge even
more. I had bought a book on Windows XP for this kind of situation, and it
proved worthless: Pogue's "Missing Manual" on XP. Lesson learned: don't rely
on an ideological Macintosh advocate to solve Windows problems.

[By the way, I'm now reposting this message, as posted a few hours ago on
the web-based system, which seems not to transmit as reliably as a mail
reader.]

----- The Unknown P wrote: -----

Doing a repair install was your biggest mistake. I'm not sure if you
will ever be able to recover the files as now you will basically have two
setups on the same machine. If you want to install the NT Backup and see if
it finds and restores the files then it's on your XP disk in the
valueadd\msft\ntbackup folder. Put the disk in and when the autoplay comes
up click the "perform addtional tasks" and then the "explore this CD" and
look for the folder listed above. Let us know how you make out. Good luck.
The Unknown P said:
Doing a repair install was your biggest mistake. I'm not sure if you will
Click to expand...
ever be able to recover the files as now you will basically have two setups
on the same machine. If you want to install the NT Backup and see if it
finds and restores the files then it's on your XP disk in the
valueadd\msft\ntbackup folder. Put the disk in and when the autoplay comes
up click the "perform addtional tasks" and then the "explore this CD" and
look for the folder listed above. Let us know how you make out. Good luck.
 
srdiamond said:
Tonight my computer failed to boot, with the error NTLDR missing. I tried to do the reinstall of Windows that leaves your settings intact. So my computer booted with the newly installed system, but the system is ignorant of the files that still exist on the computer.
Click to expand...

Then you did *not* do a repair Installation, but a New Install over the
top of the old one. And you will not recover the old registry backups
because the New install will have deleted them
 
The said:
Doing a repair install was your biggest mistake. I'm not sure if you will ever be able to recover the files as now you will basically have two setups on the same machine.
Click to expand...

Doing a Repair reinstall would have been fine - if that is what he had
done. But he evidently did not. For a repair, Set the BIOS to boot CD
before Hard disk, then boot the XP CD, start Setup (do not take
'Repair' at this stage), then after the license agreement take 'Repair
Installation'. This will retain your existing software installations
and most settings.

But if instead of Repair you take New Install it puts a fresh install,
with cleaned out registry on top of the old - a mix that is very
unlikely now to be useful, other than to back up data files prior to
doing a proper clean install. For that, Enter Setup, and after the
license agreement take New Install. When it asks you to confirm where,
hit ESC; select and delete the current partition and make a new RAW one
to be formatted at the next stage

The important point is the delete. Without that it will just go ahead
and make a new install over the top of the old one, as on the previous
occasion
 
Thanks, Alex.

As to what I actually did--I recall selecting repair install, and then
Windows asked me to press the letter L if I wanted to leave everything as it
was. I wasn't sure what that meant, and shouldn't have impulsively hit L.
What wasn't clear to me was the scope of "everything;" Windows actually put
it that way. Obviously a repair would *not* leave "everything" as it was, so
I figured maybe I would fail to repair, but the worse that would happen is
nothing, reading Windows' option literally.

But, anyway, now I know. I lost the better part of a day, but didn't lose
any data.

srdiamond


to do the reinstall of Windows that leaves your settings intact. So my
computer booted with the newly installed system, but the system is ignorant
of the files that still exist on the computer.
 
The tombs written on XP inform me that an NTLDR failure is quite common.
Small changes to the same may precipitate a failure to load. NTLDR is a file
that hands control of the disk to Windows. It stands for NT Loader, not
something esoteric as I had believed.

One book went so far as to say that the solution is an emergency repair to
replace the file. It then referred the reader to another chapter, which
didn't actually keep the promise. It seems there's an easy solution, but for
some reason neither Microsoft nor its expositors are terribly eager to
reveal it. (It seems to me that a boot disk should be provided with Windows,
or else an instruction with nagging reminders to create one, and
periodically to update it. Backup is a lot more important than defragging,
but the backup utility must be specially installed in Windows Home. Go
figure.)

So, my question now is, boot floppy in hand, how do you go about replacing a
single critical Windows file like NTLDR?

srdiamond


ever be able to recover the files as now you will basically have two setups
on the same machine.
 
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