BlouBul Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 (edited) Better to export parts of a registry and delete what you exported, so you can add it back later without puzzling where and what you changed.Thanks puntoMX,That is indeed a better idea (I was a bit worried about the method, that is why I asked for confirmation before he tries it)Your windows registry is messed up way beyond repair ...What brand of HDD do you have Jorge?You got me thinking again (another one of my wild ideas ).What about also asking how much free space does he have on his hdd? What do you think about creating a new partition, installing only Vista and Office 2007 and see what happens (you did suggest that earlier for the whole hdd).The PITA factor would be less than uninstalling and re-installing and reregistering everything, and if it works, he can decide if he wants to do go that route.Just my 2x1c ZAR. Edited October 3, 2010 by BlouBul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dencorso Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 @JorgeA: We can explore BlouBul's suggestion from post #89 in several safe (some safer, some less safe) ways. Let's think about it before jumping into action...For my information:1)Your Vista is installed on NTFS, of course, right?2)Moreover, your data is in the same partition as the OS, and, in fact, the boot disk has just a single primary (bootable) partition that spans the whole disk, right?3)How many internal hard disks does that machine have, and which and how many drive letters belonging to HDDs are there? Just C:? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JorgeA Posted October 3, 2010 Author Share Posted October 3, 2010 BlouBul,Thanks for providing that link, I read through it.Sadly, it sounds like the fixes people are offering there, create as many problems as they solve (losing your settings, menus, and toolbars; files opening in explorer.exe by default). Plus, I rarely open files from outside Word -- normally I first go into Word and then look for the file to be opened.Doctor, going into the Registry is major surgery that I don't think I want to undergo for my stubbed toe! --JorgeA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JorgeA Posted October 3, 2010 Author Share Posted October 3, 2010 What brand of HDD do you have Jorge?puntoMX,I have a Seagate ST3500620AS. But I doubt if the issue has anything to do with the drive itself -- remember that the file took only 1:12 to open in Microsoft Works (as opposed to Word) on the same machine. I suspect that it has something to do with MS Word or Office.--JorgeA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JorgeA Posted October 3, 2010 Author Share Posted October 3, 2010 @JorgeA: We can explore BlouBul's suggestion from post #89 in several safe (some safer, some less safe) ways. Let's think about it before jumping into action...For my information:1)Your Vista is installed on NTFS, of course, right?2)Moreover, your data is in the same partition as the OS, and, in fact, the boot disk has just a single primary (bootable) partition that spans the whole disk, right?3)How many internal hard disks does that machine have, and which and how many drive letters belonging to HDDs are there? Just C:?dencorso,To take your questions in order --Yes.Yes and no. The data is in the same partition as the OS, but the manufacturer (HP) created a recovery partition on the same physical HDD.There is just the one internal hard disk. If you count only the internal HDD, C: and D: are assigned to it. Other letters are assigned to various external HDDs and flash drives of different kinds.HTH.--JorgeA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlouBul Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 How much space do you have left on your big partition?Do you have an old internal drive lying around somewhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntoMX Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 What brand of HDD do you have Jorge?puntoMX,I have a Seagate ST3500620AS. But I doubt if the issue has anything to do with the drive itself -- remember that the file took only 1:12 to open in Microsoft Works (as opposed to Word) on the same machine. I suspect that it has something to do with MS Word or Office.--JorgeAYes I know that your Office install has gone bad or a part of the registry that went out as well. So, you have a Seagate, use their DiscWizard to install Acronis and make an image of the drive as it is now (after you backup your important data in another disc or so) and do some fresh install. You can always set the image back with Acronis as it is now.EDIT: The data is in the same partition as the OS, but the manufacturer (HP) created a recovery partition on the same physical HDD.Shoot! Then my Acronis idea will not work... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JorgeA Posted October 3, 2010 Author Share Posted October 3, 2010 The data is in the same partition as the OS, but the manufacturer (HP) created a recovery partition on the same physical HDD.Shoot! Then my Acronis idea will not work...puntoMX,Does that mean that I could not use something like Acronis or Norton Ghost to create a whole-system image as a complete (OS + applications + data) backup in case my HDD gets fried? (Or if that's not what you mean, then what is the problem that arises by having the recovery partition on the same HDD?)--JorgeA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JorgeA Posted October 3, 2010 Author Share Posted October 3, 2010 How much space do you have left on your big partition?Do you have an old internal drive lying around somewhere?BlouBul,The big (C:) partition has 337GB available, out of a total of 454GB.Unfortunately, I don't have any other internal drives around. What do you have in mind?--JorgeA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlouBul Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 (edited) BlouBul,The big (C:) partition has 337GB available, out of a total of 454GB.Unfortunately, I don't have any other internal drives around. What do you have in mind?I was just trying to think ahead. I think dencorso and/or puntoMX will guide you to try and fix the registry. If that won't work (which I'm hoping will work), I was thinking as per post#91 to create another bootable partition to install firstly only Vista and Office which should hopefully fix the problem. You have more than enough free space for that option. If you had an old internal drive lying around, we could also have just used that. Also told me of course that it is not due to not enough disk space that your computer is slow. Edited October 3, 2010 by BlouBul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JorgeA Posted October 3, 2010 Author Share Posted October 3, 2010 BlouBul,Thanks for explaining, I see.Hmm... I think I'd much rather muck around in the registry than reinstall Vista and/or Office!Although, that said, and FWIW, I notice that I've been having trouble using System Restore to go back to previous restore points. Last week I downloaded a program dencorso suggested, that turned out to originate in China. I got jittery about that (sorry, dencorso! ), and tried to go back to a previous restore point to obliterate the program. No dice!! It won't do it.The error message is maddening -- "System Restore did not complete successfully. Your computer's system files and settings were not changed... An unspecified error occurred during System Restore." Very helpful message, eh?(Just for the record, the issue with Word does, of course, predate the installation of that Chinese software.)So, great, now for whatever reason if my PC has a problem I can't even go back to a previous working copy of the system. Lovely. Windows 98 is looking better and better from the rearview mirror.--JorgeA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JorgeA Posted October 3, 2010 Author Share Posted October 3, 2010 (edited) BlouBul,I have a theory as to what might be causing that System Restore error (drum roll...): a Norton product (cymbal crash)!!Sunday is backup night for my PC. As soon as those processes are finished, I'll try the procedure described on that page, and report back with the results.-JorgeAUPDATE: I followed the procedure given there, and then System Restore worked. Of course, as a result there were a number of updates to download again (including some from Norton!), but at least now I know how to get this to work properly. Edited October 3, 2010 by JorgeA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dencorso Posted October 4, 2010 Share Posted October 4, 2010 Do you actually have the good old Norton Ghost 2003 at hand? If you do, we can play ball much better than with Acronis. But another HDD, perhaps an external HDD, would be much desirable also. I'd start doing a real forensic (or byte-by-byte) image of your whole disk and NG 2003 is perfect to do it reliably. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JorgeA Posted October 4, 2010 Author Share Posted October 4, 2010 dencorso,No, sorry to say, I don't have any edition of Norton Ghost. Where does that leave us?--JorgeA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dencorso Posted October 4, 2010 Share Posted October 4, 2010 Please point me to (or post) any documentation (the user manual, preferably) regarding the precise version of Acronis you have access to, and let me digest it. Then I'll be able to gauge where we actually do stand. Your System Restore is working OK again, now, is that right? And, BTW, I'm convinced VSuite is harmless, or I wouldn't recommend it, but feel free to disagee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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