XP Home Configuration Registry Corrupt

[Guest]

I have posted a question elsewhere about my Sony Vaio laptop suddenly asking
for a password for my son-in-law (the previous owner). Now I think it may be
a different problem.

We have tried several likely passwords, even though he had no password on
his laptop. I have tried to log in a Administrator in Safe Mode with a blank
password and I get this message:

"We can't load user's profile but have logged you on with teh default profile.

"The configuration registry is corrupt."

The I get another error message:

"Explorer.exe failed to initialize proeprly. Click OK to terminate the
application."

Then I get a Safe Mode screen that is blank except for the words "Safe Mode"
in the corners. When we try to log in to Windows, we get a similar message
with wallpaper but no task bar, Start button, desktop icons, etc.

I have tried two of the utilities lised in other messages for recovering
passwords, but I cannot get the laptop to read anything from the CD drive
when booting up.

What has changed on the PC? I installed SP2 a few weeks ago thinking it
would address the recent security flaws announced for XP. My wife is a
novice user and thinks she may have entered a password for my son-in-law's
account (Greg) but is not sure.

I have received the recovery CDs from Sony, but I still hope I don't have to
use them. We don't have a lot of data on the laptop but my daughter has some
photos and movies that they MAY have copied before passing the laptop to us.

Do I have any options other than trying to restore the laptop to its factory
state?

 

[Malke]

I have posted a question elsewhere about my Sony Vaio laptop suddenly
asking
for a password for my son-in-law (the previous owner). Now I think it
may be a different problem.

We have tried several likely passwords, even though he had no password
on
his laptop. I have tried to log in a Administrator in Safe Mode with
a blank password and I get this message:

"We can't load user's profile but have logged you on with teh default
profile.

"The configuration registry is corrupt."

The I get another error message:

"Explorer.exe failed to initialize proeprly. Click OK to terminate
the application."

Then I get a Safe Mode screen that is blank except for the words "Safe
Mode"
in the corners. When we try to log in to Windows, we get a similar
message with wallpaper but no task bar, Start button, desktop icons,
etc.

I have tried two of the utilities lised in other messages for
recovering passwords, but I cannot get the laptop to read anything
from the CD drive when booting up.

What has changed on the PC? I installed SP2 a few weeks ago thinking
it
would address the recent security flaws announced for XP. My wife is
a novice user and thinks she may have entered a password for my
son-in-law's account (Greg) but is not sure.

I have received the recovery CDs from Sony, but I still hope I don't
have to
use them. We don't have a lot of data on the laptop but my daughter
has some photos and movies that they MAY have copied before passing
the laptop to us.

Do I have any options other than trying to restore the laptop to its
factory state?

At this point I'd either take the laptop to a professional computer
repair shop and have them diagnose/fix it or back up your data and
restore to factory condition. There is no way for people who can't see
your computer to know what has changed on it.

It is completely possible to retrieve data from a machine that will not
boot into Windows as long as the hard drive itself is physically
viable. Here are some ways:

1. Pull the drive and slave it in a computer running a working install
of XP. Depending on the target drive's characteristics, you may need a
drive adapter; i.e., laptop-to-IDE or a SATA controller card, etc. A
usb/firewire external drive enclosure works very well, too. Use the
working Windows Explorer to copy the data to the rescue system's hard
drive and then burn the data to cd or dvd.

2. Often XP will not boot with a slaved drive that has a damaged file
system. In that case, boot the target computer with either a Bart's PE
or a Linux live cd such as Knoppix and retrieve the data that way. Here
is general information on using Knoppix for this:

You will need a computer with two cd drives, one of which is a cd/dvd-rw
OR a usb thumb drive with enough capacity to hold your data OR an
external usb/firewire hard drive formatted FAT32 (not NTFS). To get
Knoppix, you need a computer with a fast Internet connection and
third-party burning software. Download the Knoppix .iso and create your
bootable cd. Then boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows
files. If you are using the usb thumb drive or the external hard drive,
right-click on its icon (on the Desktop) to get its properties and
uncheck the box that says "Read Only". Then click on it to open it.
Note that the default mouse action in the window manager used by
Knoppix (KDE) is a single click to open instead of the traditional MS
Windows' double-click. Otherwise, use the K3b burning program to burn
the files to cd/dvd-r's.

http://www.knoppix.net
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ - Bart's PE Builder

You know your skill level best so act accordingly. There is no shame in
admitting this isn't your cup of tea - I don't hesitate to take my car
to the mechanic.

Malke