Reinstall XP2 without reformat on machine that has corrupt registry-sy

[Bill Gaze]

I have an IBM T40P laptop running XP SP2 that is current. I was in the process of cleaning up and reorganizing my data among my 3 machines and storage devices. I moved most of my data off of the machine and was preparing to do a defrag. I thought that I should do a cleanup prior to the defrag so I ran registry first aid which I do on a regular basis.

I also wanted to run Spybot S&D and was having a problem with it so I decided to reboot and start again. When I rebooted, I got the message "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \windows\system32\config\system.

I went to the IBM product recovery CD and the only option that I seemed to have was to reformat the drive and reinstall XP. Since all of my financial info is in quickbooks, I deferred on this point. I had a reinstallation disk that is for XPSP1a from one of my Dell machines. I inserted this and was able to boot through and go to the recovery console. When it asked for the administrator password, I left it blank and was able to get to the hard drive via dos commands. I followed the procedure in Microsoft forum and was able to copy the initial files into the config folder.

I was able to then boot windows and tried to restore to a previous backup registry. I used RFA to do this. When I restarted windows, it launched OK but most of my applications did not run correctly or came up unregistered. I also was unable to have any network access, both wireless and hard wired.

I decided to try and return the origional software file and that seemed to help, but still no network. I decided to try and return the system file, and when I rebooted, I was back to the could not start problem.

I figured OK, I would just go back to the recovery console and copy the system file back and try something else, maybe try and restore to an early date.

Now, however, when I launch the recovery console and it asks for the administrator password, I just hit the enter key like before, but now it says it is not a valid password.

Sooo, three questions

1) Is there any way around the administrator password so I can run windows and copy my needed files off, or

2) Can I install windows without reformating the drive? I know that I will probably need to reinstall the applications, but the files should remain intact?

3) can I purchase a generic Windows SP3 upgrade and install it without either formatting the drive or by installing it in a new partition so the existing files will remain intact?

Sorry for the long windedness, but I hoped that by explaining the entire process, it would be easer to give me some good advice.

Thanks for your help.

Bill Gaze

[Jeremy]

I thought that I should do a cleanup prior to the defrag so I ran registry first aid which I do on a regular basis.

Use CCleaner to cleanup before a defrag. Also check my blog entry here

When I rebooted, I got the message "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \windows\system32\config\system.

That's never good.

Now, however, when I launch the recovery console and it asks for the administrator password, I just hit the enter key like before, but now it says it is not a valid password.

1) Is there any way around the administrator password so I can run windows and copy my needed files off

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor, Bootdisk / CD

2) Can I install windows without reformating the drive? I know that I will probably need to reinstall the applications, but the files should remain intact?

Providing that any/all problems regarding booting to that partition/drive are resolved, a repair install is the answer.

3) can I purchase a generic Windows SP3 upgrade and install it without either formatting the drive or by installing it in a new partition so the existing files will remain intact?

The latest Service Pack for Windows XP is SP2. You can download it from this location.

[Bill Gaze]

Thanks Jeremy

Couple of things - I tried the password and registry editor you suggested, everything seems normal through to completion, yet when I go to the recovery console, I still get password is not valid. I also modified the recovery to not require a password and it still requires the password. Any ideas what the problem may be?

Also, my question is should I buy a brand new Windows package and try and run recovery, and if that does not work and I still can not boot into windows, can I install it on the same drive, either trying to upgrade the existing Windows or install it in a different partition. Would I still be able to access the data in the current partition? Will it install as a direct boot disk without requiring a reformat?

I hope that I am explaining this correctly. I just need a way to get the machine operating with windows so I can copy off my data files. I don't care about the applications, I can reinstall them.

Thanks for your help.

[Bill Gaze]

Just a follow-up. I was going through the registry change process again and I noticed the comment after I selected the partition. it says NTFS volume version 3.1 then NTFS - fs error (device hda1): load_system_files(): Volume is dirty. Mounting read-only. Run chkdsk and mount in windows. File system is NTFS. I guess this is why the changes did not happen. How do I ren chkdsk if I can't get passed the admin login to get to dos?

Thanks

[LLXX]

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \windows\system32\config\system

This is bad. Usually it indicates the hard drive is wearing out or damaged. Windows accesses the registry hive as one of the first files read during boot, so the sectors this file resides in gets a lot of read/write activity and thus are the first to fail.

Take the HDD out and plug it into a desktop PC (I'm assuming you have one) - you may need to use an adapter (cheap). Now you can read the contents of the drive and/or format it from the desktop machine.

[Bill Gaze]

Great idea.

I purchased a mad dog mega vault, mounted the drive, and I am able to transfer all of my files to my desktop PC.

I might even be able to make a registry adjustment from there. Not sure if I will be able to restore without a reinstall, but I certainly got all of my data.

Again, thanks for the great idea.

Regards,

Bill

Edited December 31, 2006 by Bill Gaze

[Nakatomi2010]

To fix '\windows\system32\config\system' error get Ultimate Boot CD for Windows and run Registry Restore Wizard, essentially this goes into the System Volume Information and grabs that last registry snapshots and allows Windows to boot again, also allows you to do a repair isntall, if need be, typically just restoring from the SVI directory gets the job done... The 'System' file it's complaining about is the basically one of the registry hives, so you need to restore it from the System restore information, which is stored within the SVI directory.....

The cause of this error is typically a failing hard drive, so be sure to run a diagnostic on it....

Don't have UBCD4win?

Boot into recovery console and change do the following...

go to C:\ssystem voume information\snapshots\rsxxx (Where xxx=directory created a couple days before the issue began)

do a dir to get a list of files, once the list is there you should see 5 files that end with different names, (SYSTEM, SAM, SOFTWARE, DEFAULT, SECURITY), copy those 5 files to C:\, rename them so they're just SYSTEM, SOFTWARE, SECURITY, SAM, DEFAULT, then copy them back into C:\windows\system32\config

Enjoy

[Ponch]

I've had this problem 2 months ago on a client's computer, tried to fix it but also got the password error message. At the end it was a hardware problem (HDD as suggested by Nakatomi) so I'd also advise to check that first.