Got this on my laptop, ive tried a xp disc (from my desktop) and when I start recovery (pressing R) it goes to command propmt and says unable to find registry. Whats next? Theres a rake of porn on it that I need to offload before I hand it in to the IT bloke at work and been honest Id much rather get it going before then. Any ideas? Know its in wrong section but its a bit urgent to be hiding it away.

 

Are you trying to reset the computer to factory settings?

 

Tbh it sounds like an area on the HDD with the config directory on has become corrupt/damaged.

Your best best it to try and get it to someone with a laptop IDE reader to 'remove' the porn off it - thats if it can be recovered at all!!

I've got one but you're not local! LOL!

 

its just happened, ran chkdsk and it took ages and repaired loads. Im gonna delete the porn through dos

 

Dont forget when you boot up in an old DOS OS it wont be able to read the disk if its formatted in NTFS!!!

 

at command prompt try typing...

Chkdsk/p The /p switch runs Chkdsk even if the drive is not flagged as dirty.
Chkdsk/r The /r switch locates bad sectors and recovers readable information.

or

Fixboot writes a new startup sector on the system partition.

 

Just remove the partition, Im sure the lazy IT department would rather just reinstall XP than try to mess about recovering it

 

use a live linux cd like knoppix and copy it all to a usb hard disk or thumb drive

 

Definately try this. recovered one just recently with the same error as you at work.

 

just done the chkdsk /r an it took proper ages, got to 60% held there for ages then said one or more issues may not be repairable and stopped. Did a reboot and still same message. cannot find .... Recovery console still reports it cant find a registry. Just looking around for a better recovery tool, remember in the day Norton Disk Doctor was king but not sure about nowadays? Anyone know of anything that I can boot from and use to recover some of the lost windows files. Not too fusses about my grot but I dont want work to try recover any data and get all manner of dodgy filenames coming up. Lesson to be learnt here I think

 

See if this helps, lifted from another forum.

Okay, the problem is your Registry got seriously corrupted or you lost an entire hive.

You lost HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM

I would have recomended you try the Last Known Good Configuration.

If not, you can extract the necessary registry files from System Resore. You see it makes a backup of your registry at each restore point.

What you can do is cd to System Volume Information assuming the ACL Lets you go there. If not you will need to use cacls to change the permissions and add administrator to that NTFS space.

Next, browse to the newest restore point. Sort them by date and find the snapshot folder.

For me

C:\System Volume Information\_restore{C124B6EE-F5E1-4677-A471-C23BE17217FF}\RP541\snapshot

That is Why XP refused to start.

In there, you will find something that looks like _HKLM_System

or something to that extent.

make a backup of c:\widnows\system32\config\system

To fix
Just copy and rename it all in one go with the copy commnd.

e.g.

While in the folder

copy _HKLM_System c:\windows\system32\config\system

Now, you have a partially incorrect HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System because it is not consistent with the rest of the registry.

However, it should be good enough to either boot the system or at least you will get another error.

The system will probably start up in normal mode now 99%, but I give it a 100% that it will startup in safemode.

When the system starts, you may see something to the extent of "A Service failed to initialize properly" or something like that because that is the area where the services are stored...

Now that you are in safemode, run system restore and pick the most recent restore point. That will restore your entire registry to a known good point!!!

Windows should run just fine from that point out.

-Jbirk

 

well, the laptop saw its arse and wouldnt play ball at all, ended up putting a dodgy new install of XP on it as a repair and it eventually started up, lost all manner of installed programs and files. Managed to delete the grot which was all that was really bothering me.
Anyway, guess what, my desktop has just reported the exact same problem, not starting due to system been missing. Followed collierm's instructions above and got the little bastard to get back to normal windows, keep getting loads of messages saying my antivirus cant update (ESET NOD32), then messages that google has stopped a program attempts to change my default search, then ask.com has stopped a programs attempts to change my default search. Ran chkdsk that repaired loads of stuff on the desktop. Cant work out whats going on

 

i once had same thing, ended up getting a new harddrive as i had windows me and u cant upgrade to xp from me

 

just cant weigh up how two computers are affected by it in24hrs, can understand the laptop as its never been off in 18 months, proper hammered it, but the desktop just seems weird