System Restore won't run

[Dad with a problem]

I installed a new hard drive on my computer and now
System won't run. When I try to access the System
Restore tab of System Properties in Control Panel I get
the following error message:

"An exception occurred while trying to
run "shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL "D:\WINDOWS\System32
\sysdm.cpl",System"

Anyone know of a fix to get this thing running? I'm not
trying to restore to an old restore point, I just want
the thing up and running again.

Thanks
Dad with a problem

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

You don't make it clear, is this an additonal drive, or is it a replacement
drive ?

If its an addition, what state is the new drive in, is it successfully
installed and visible in device manager under disk drives ?

control/system/hardware/device manager

click on the plus sign next to disk drives,

Is the new drive there?

Go into disk manager

click start
click run
type "diskmgmt.msc" without the quotes
hit return

Do you see it?
Have you created any partitions on it ?
You wont be able to access it until you have created at least one partition.

Does the new drive now show up in My Computer ?
Again it wont show up with a drive letter unless you have created a
partition on it and assigned a drive letter to that partition.

Once you have at least one partiton on the new drive, check on the state of
the system restore service,

click start
click run
type "services.msc" without the quotes
Hit return

Scroll down the list of services to system restore service
Does it show started ?

Paul

 

[Dad with a problem]

Sorry, let me clarify. Thanks for posting so quickly.

This is a replacement drive for a dual boot Win98/WinXP
system. Everything is working and it shows up in device
manager etc. My original drive had Win98SE on the primary
partition labeled C (I upgraded from Win98 to WinXP Home
and used the dual boot option) with WinXP Home Edition on
a logical partition labeled D.

I upgraded the hard drive from 20GB to 80GB, got
everything running again except now when I boot in WinXP,
my WinXP is still labeled D and my Win98 partition is now
labeled F and I have no C partition. Not sure why that
happened but that is another story and possibly why System
Restore is hosed. I gave up on trying to get my Win98
partition labeled C again when I boot from WinXP but up to
now all my programs run fine except when I try to run
System Restore and it does not run.

My old 20GB hard drive is also installed as a logical
slave with a single partition labeled Z and I use it for
data back up storage. So far, everything appears to run
fine except for System Restore.

Does this help?
Thanks

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

How did you get the contents of the original disk over onto the new disk?

Explain exactly what you did.

Sorry for not replying sooner, but I went out for a spot of exercise.

Paul

 

[Dad with a problem \(I'm Bill\)]

Paul: I started with my original hard disk in the primary
and I had a smaller hard drive as slave.

1. I removed the old slave drive and installed the new
80GB drive as a slave. I booted the computer in Win98 and
it recognized the new drive. I ran Partition Magic (ver
7.0 I think, not at home right now) in Win98 and created
two partitions, C primary active Win98 and D logical with
WinXP to match the 20GB drive I was replacing.

2. I rebooted my computer again in Win98 and using
Partition Magic and Win98 and looked at the new drive.
Both partitions were there. Everything looked OK, nothing
wierd. I remember it looked something like this:
C: the 20GB HD primary Win98 Partition
D: the 80GB HD primary partition, no software yet
E: the 20GB HD logical secondary with WinXP
F: the 80GB HD logical secondary, no software yet

3. Rebooted to WinXP and I found everything, I used Drive
Image (8.0 I think) to copy the partitions to the new hard
drive, i.e. Win98 to Win98 etc. I can't remember now if I
rebooted or not after I copied the images over. I shut
down and removed the 20GB HD and installed only the 80GB
hard drive as the only drive on the computer.

4. Rebooted in Win98, C drive was the Win98 drive and D
was the WinXP drive. Rebooted in WinXP, D was the WinXP
drive and Win98 drive was named something other than C.
Did not think much about it at the time. Ran programs on
the 80GB drive for a few days, did not try to run System
Restore though.

5. I later (couple days) installed my old 20GB drive as a
slave planning later to re-format and use for backup
storage. Never tried to run System Restore either but
everything was working fine.

6. Got so confident and worried about not having a backup
image on the computer, I reformated the old drive and made
a single 20GB partition. That's when I started to realize
that when booting in WinXP, WinXP would not assign the
drive letter C to the Win98 partition. It is currently
calling the Win98 partition in WinXP, F.

7. I was going to put some new software on the WinXP
drive and went to create a restore point, something I have
always done in XP before I load new software. That's when
I learned System Restore would not run. Now I'm back to
my initial question.

I am not at home and have not run the "services.msc"
command so I don't know yet if system restore services is
running. Never had an error message or anything in all of
this. Hope this helps.
Thanks
Bill (Dad with a problem)

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

I think I understand.

So we have an 80GB disk with 2 partitions

D: Windows xp
F: Windows 98

I need some additional info.

Boot windows xp.

Go into the disk manager

start/run
diskmgmt.msc

I need to undestand how this disk is setup.

Disk manager uses colour coding to indicate the type of partition, primary,
extended and the logical drives within the extended partitiion.

For the 2 drives on the 80gb disk, what type of partition is D: and what
type is F:

Which one is specified as (system) and which as (boot).

Now go to a command prompt

start/run
cmd

Look in the root directory of both D: and F:
and find out which drive the files boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com are on.
They are system files, and hidden so you'll have to use dir/a

eg

C:
cd \
dir/a

f:
cd \
dir/a

When you have the info post a reply.

Paul

 

[Bill \(Dad with a problem\)]

Hi Paul: Here is the answer to your questions:

1. I ran "services.msc". The System Restore Service
shows a blank status, i.e. It does not show started.

2. From diskmgmt.msc the following info applies:

FWin98SE): Healthy (System), Primary Partition, 4.88GB
FAT32

DWinXP): Healthy (Boot), Logical Drive, 69.65GB FAT32

3. Files boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com are on the F
drive.

So now what's the bad news? Thanks again for your help.
Best Regards,
Bill

 

[Guest]

Paul: Some additional information. Using the
services.msc command, I got into the services application
and double clicked on System Restore Service. This
opened a window called "System Restore Service Properties
(Local Computer)". I clicked on the General Tab and the
following information was provided:

Path to Executable: D:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe -k
netsvcs

Startup type: Automatic

Service status: Stopped

There is a Start button there and I clicked on it and got
the following error message: "Could not start the System
Restore Service service on Local Computer. Error 3: The
system cannot find the path specified." I searched the
D: drive and found the svchost.exe file is in fact
located in D:\WINDOWS\System32 folder.

Also, in the startup type window which is currently set
to Automatic, other choices are Manual and Disabled. I
was thinking maybe to Disable, restart the computer and
try again. Am I on the right track? Your thoughts?
Thanks in advance for your assistance.
Very Best Regards,
Bill

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Ok,

Don't worry, it looks like I guessed it would look.

F: Is labelled as the system partition, I don't know why microsoft chose to
name them this way around, but the system partition is actually the
partition which contains the boot sector.
This makes sense because in the original setup on the old disk, you would
have installed windows 98 first. So its partition would get the boot sector
and as you can see is a primary partition.
You can only have a boot sector in a primary partition.

For some reason when you install xp, if there is already a primary
partition, it creates an extended partition with a logical drive. Again I
dont know why since you can have 3 primary parttions on a basic disk.
Since the extended partition is not bootable, it puts the 3 xp bootfiles, in
the primary partiton where windows 98 is.

So, all looks ok

I think the issue for system restore because you cloned the partitons,
system restore still expects to see a c: drive.


Unfortunately, because the system partition(the one needed to boot ie
windows 98) and the boot partition(the one with the currently booted
operating system files) are both in use, you can't reassign one of them a
new drive letter easily. We may try it if the following doesn't fix it.

Try and recreate a C: drive by changing Z: to C:

Go into diskmgmt.msc and right click on Z: and select "Change Drive letter
or Path" , highlight the Z: drive, and the click change drive letter and
select c: from the list.

You may need to reboot for it to take effect.

If that doesn't work I'm afraid we're going to have to make a change in the
registry.

Come back when you've tried it.

Paul

 

[Bill]

Paul: I changed the Z drive to C. All went well but
System Restore will not run, just like before. I'm a
little nervous about changing the registry so please give
me some direction on how to back it up and get the
computer running again if everything blows up.
Thanks
Bill

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

OK.

Have a read of this MS article and follow the links under "backup the whole
registry" to home or professional. It will save me an awful lot of typing


9/10 a repair install would fix a problem.

Paul

 

[Bill]

Paul: Is something missing below? Do not understand
your reply.
Have a read of this MS article???? Where???
9/10 a repair install would fix a problem?????
Thanks
Bill

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

My appologies Bill

Not sure what happened there !

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;256986

I meant, 9 out of 10 times a repair install would fix a problem in the
machine specific parts of the registry. Obviously if you go in and start
changing user specific settings, a repair install would'nt get those back.

Paul

 

[Bill]

Paul: Ok, I guess I got lost in here somewhere. From
everything you have said so far, my understanding is
this. My upgrading the hard drive caused my System
Restore to no longer work? The only way to attempt a fix
is to perform a Repair install of WinXP, true? I had the
impression you were going to tell me how to reassign the
drive letters in the registry or something like that
first. Maybe you changed your mind? Tell me exactly how
you would proceed if you were me. Sorry about the
confusion, I'm just being cautious. What I have now
works and if something goes wrong I would at least like
to be able to get back to where I am now if a fix does
not work. Thanks
Bill

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Hey Bill,

Sorry if I confused you.

I thought you were going to go and backup your registry first.

Yes I am going to go through changing the drive letters in the registry, or
if I can find it, (I've got a link somewhere) , I'll point you at the
microsoft article, who are a little more erudite than me.

I mentioned the repair install to try to reassure you, that there is always
a final getout if you do anything bad in the area of the registry that needs
to be changed. But since you're going to back it up anyway, this was just an
extra level of reassurance.

I'm not guarunteeing that reassigning the drive letter WILL fix it, but
we've always got the repair install up our sleeves if it doesn't and this
would seem a logical thing to do firsta as its much much quicker.

Paul

 

[Bill]

Paul: OK, I backed up my registry by doing a System
State backup to a folder I created on my slave drive. I
also changed the slave drive letter designation back to Z
from C. Now C is available for use.

I did some looking for how to change the boot drive
letter in WinXP and could only find the Microsoft
Knowledge Base Article 223188, which according to the
article, does not work for WinXP. I'm ready to attempt a
fix. Thanks
Bill

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Thats the article I was looking for.
It was written for windows 2000, but I can't see anything in there that says
it doesn't work with xp, I've searched it for the string "XP", where abouts
does it say you can't?
Remember that windows 2000 is actually NT 5.0, and windows xp is NT 5.1. So
underneath the snazzy interface, they're reasonably similar.

Anyway, just to make sure and for my own piece of mind I just tested it on
this system and it worked fine.

This system has 3 partions

C: Old xp partition which has had xp windows folder deleted, but
retains the boot.ini ntldr and ntdetect.com files. I used to have this pc
dual boot with windows xp without sp1 and windows xp with sp1. In microsoft
terminlogy this is the system partition.

D: Current Windows XP operating system. In microsoft terminlogy, the BOOT
partition.

E: Data

I just changed C: (the system partion) which is what your windows 98
partition is, to Q: and rebooted, worked fine. Changed it back to C: and
rebooted, no problems.

The XP change is easier than in this article, for a start you dont need to
change any key permissions, the permissions already have full control for
the administrators group.
Also under xp there is only 1 version of regedit.

So all you have to do is

start/run
regedit

Click the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

This opens up the group of keys including SYSTEM

Click the plus sign next to SYSTEM, this opens another level

Click MountedDevices

Look to the right hand pane.

Scroll the windows down with down arrow on the right hand scroll bar until
you see the key values whihc start \DosDevices\A:

You want to change F: to C:, so right click on \DosDevices\F: and select
rename, this puts a box around \DosDevices\F: and highlights it, click just
on or near the colon to dehighlight it and position the cursor in the box,
and then change the letter F to C and hit return. You can use the left and
right arrow key to move the cursor, and the delete key to delete the letter
F, and then type C, insert mode is on by default. Sorry if I'm giving too
much detail.

Registry changes take effect immediatley, so theres nothing to save, just
click on the X sign in the top right hand corner to exit.

Now reboot.

Paul

 

[Bill]

Paul: Thanks. One last thing before I attempt to change
the drive letter for my Win98 partition. If the registry
trashes and I'm stuck without the abilty to boot in WinXP,
how do I get back to the old registry? I'm thinking I
have to use NTBackup in WinXP but if the computer won't
boot to XP, I'm kinda screwed. Please advise and then I
will try the fix.
Thanks again,
Best Regards,
Bill

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

Hey Bill,

Nearly there.

This is how you recover, I did a bit of cut and paste from microsoft KB
articles. There's various ways, but this is probably the most straight
forward without having to reload or do a repair intstall of windows xp.

By doing a system state backup the files in the folder \windows\repair
should also have been updated, so just have a check on their modification
dates.

As an extra safeguard copy the files in the \windows\repair folder onto your
Z: drive and also onto you windows 98 partiton.

Since windows 98 and windows xp is if I remember rightly are both
installed on a FAT32 partition, you can access them and restore them using
windows 98.

We are not making any changes to windows 98 so if it boots ok now, then it
will boot after the registry change.

Test it !
Just out of interest, when you boot windows 98, does it get the C: drive
letter ?
If I remember rightly windows 98 assigns C: to whatever drive it boots from.
Once you've tested windows 98 boots ok, and that you can see the repair
direcory files from within windows 98 you're ready !


Restoring.

This example I pinched from microsoft and uses the recovery console, but
the principle is still good for using windows 98 to boot instead. Its only
copying files.

As it says:-
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q322756#4B


Backing up the System State also creates updated copies of the registry
files in the %SystemRoot%\Repair folder. If you cannot start Windows XP
after you edit the registry, you can replace the registry files manually by
using the steps in the "Part One" section of the following Microsoft
Knowledge Base article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;307545

Part One
In part one, you boot to the Recovery Console, create a temporary folder,
back up the existing registry files to a new location, delete the registry
files at their existing location, and then copy the registry files from the
repair folder to the System32\Config folder. When you are finished with this
procedure, a registry is created that you can use to boot back into Windows
XP. This registry was created and saved during the initial setup of Windows
XP, so any changes and settings that took place after Setup completes are
lost.

To complete part one, follow these steps:
1.. Boot to the Recovery Console.
2.. At the Recovery Console command prompt, type the following lines,
pressing ENTER after you type each line:
md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak

delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default

copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default


3.. Type exit to quit Recovery Console. Your computer will restart.
Note This procedure assumes that Windows XP is installed to the C:\Windows
folder. Make sure to change C:\Windows to the appropriate windows_folder if
it is a different location.

Paul

 

[Bill]

Paul: One last question if I have to recover the
registry. Once I exit the Recovery Console and reboot. I
should be able to use backup to restore the System State
and I should be back where I started? Sorry for asking
too many questions but I know if I don't ask something
will go wrong. Thanks again.
Bill

-----Original Message-----
Hey Bill,

Nearly there.

This is how you recover, I did a bit of cut and paste from microsoft KB
articles. There's various ways, but this is probably the most straight
forward without having to reload or do a repair intstall of windows xp.

By doing a system state backup the files in the folder \windows\repair
should also have been updated, so just have a check on their modification
dates.

As an extra safeguard copy the files in the

\windows\repair folder onto your