Windows XP Home Editon recovery questions

[anders]

My Windows XP Home Editon SP1 crashed yesterday and I was not able to
recover it. Of course I didn't have another computer at hand to access
the internet and look for help. This lead me to some question on what
I might have done differently and which might help me if it happens
again.

I pressed F8 during boot and tried to start in save mode, this failed

Is there a way to get my USB Logitech keyboard and/or mouse working in
this mode or do I always have to switch in a cable keyboard and mouse?

I pressed F8 during boot and tried to start in last known working
mode, this failed

I pressed F8 during boot and changed to command mode. is there a way
to restore the registry there and if so how?

I booted from the Windows original CD and tried the repair function.
This asked my for an administration password, which it didn't accept.
I have created an administrator account called admin on my system
with admin rights (the password consist of small and capital letters,
special signs and numbers).

I then installed a fresh Windows XP over the old one without
reformatting/removing the old files.

I used the same user names (user1,admin) and computer name (Home1) as
before. This ended up with the following accounts once the
installation was finished:

a) user1
b) user1.Home1

a) is from the old installation, b) from the new. I.e. windows added
..Home1 itself. however I was not able to access the files in user1 nor
was I able to delete it. (user1.Home1 worked fine). How can I do this?
Is there a way for a user with admin rights to access files in another
users directory even if he has set the private flag?

All my programs were still below c:\program but they were not visible
in the start up menu and I assume there is no information about them
in the registry.

Is there a way to import/update the registry again so that I don't
have to reinstall all the programs again?

I also might think about using a backup tool from now on, until now I
zipped data files e.g. .doc, .xls, ... frequently to cd-r. My DVD
burner came with Veritas simple backup. What are your experiences with
it? Is it good and simple to recover from a disaster like that? Is
there anything special I have to think about?

How to back up daily data in a easy way? (I normally switch of my
computer when I don't use it).

Thanks in advance!

 

[Guest]

Sheesh! You have a lot going on:
Okay, firsy, as far as the password problem when trying to use the RecoveryConsole, read this

Start | Run | Regedi
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Setup\RecoveryConsol
Set the DWORD SecurityLevel value to
Exit Registry and Reboo

As far as backing up your system...you can't back itup every day...you'd run out of space , but you can create Restore Points, as often as you like...but there are some considerations. It is possible to back it up to a prior state when your computer had a virus, thus re-infecting your pc. If you back it up to a point prior to an installation of a service pack, you'd have to reinstall the service pack. But, once you get your pc in shape, create a restore point. Your system automatically creates them, which can use up some space, and in order to free up that space, you can( once your system is stable) Turn Off the System Restore..which will remove all restore Points. You might have to restart to clear those points. Then, Turn Restore back on, and create a clean Restore Point

As far as accessing files and folders.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421&Product=winx

Then, here is an article that you might have wanted to read before you attempted to fix the problem,;
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341&Product=winx

If you decide to edit the registry, it's a really good idea to Backup the system.

Alos, as a side note, I have a program that, once you get things stable, might be useful. It's called, EasyCleaner...It will clean your registry, remove unnecessary files, all kinds of things, The only thing I won't use on it is the Duplicate file remover...way to complicated.