How to Restore the Registry on a Severely Disabled Or Unbootable Windows
The first question I must ask is if you have every experienced an unbootable or disabled Windows.
I know how annoying of an experience it can be.
Some problems are that Windows doesn't even get past the loading Windows screen or one just gets a black screen with an error message like hal.
dll missing.
My personal most recent experience was on a new netbook.
I had just used a registry cleaning utility and when I rebooted Windows, I got an RPC server unavailable message.
This is pretty bad because all Windows services have dependencies on the RPC server, meaning only about 5 out of a 50 Windows services were able to start (essentially worse than Safe Mode) meaning wireless was disabled, themes were disabled, my computer looked awful.
If not for a system repair the only other option was to completely reformat and reinstall.
I decided to repair my Windows and this is how I did it without the Windows Disk and only a USB flash drive (netbooks don't have CD Rom drives).
Disclaimer: This method should only be undertaken by advanced computer users and could potentially damage a system.
This repair also may not be recommended depending on a unique system's configuration, you must seek expert advice prior to this repair.
Also, use this advice at your own risk and it is for demonstration only! There are no guarantees on success! These instructions are intended for Windows 7 and vary according to Windows operating system.
Make a full system backup and image before proceeding.
Note: First run a chkdsk or scan disk on the damaged computer by navigating to My Computer, then right clicking on the C: or OS drive and clicking Tools, Check Now, and then select both boxes and reboot.
You may have heard of a few repair tools that run in their own operating system environment.
The two easiest to use are WIndows PE (provided by Microsoft) and Active@ Boot Disk.
The Windows PE (microsoft) method can be tedious when installing on a usb thumb drive (windows pe is quite large and one needs at least a 2gb flash drive) and Microsoft doesn't offiically support installation.
Then there is the Active@ Boot Disk which is perhaps the best Windows Repair utility out there.
The installer from the website loads a custom lightweight Windows PE onto flash drive or CD Rom with just a few clicks of the mouse (need to use a working computer to do this).
Once you have your repair USB flash drive, reboot the troubled machine.
Depending on your computer you'll want enter the boot menu, this is frequently done by pushing f12 right when the computer starts up.
Select the usb port/drive or the cd room drive that contains the Active@ Boot Disk file.
Active @ Boot Disk will load.
Now once in the Active@ Boot Disk one will notice that it really resembles Windows in functionality.
Use the Windows like file manager to navigate to ones Windows folder and then to the system32 folder and finally to the config folder.
There you will find a file called SYSTEM.
SYSTEM is the registry for the entire system operation, one of the most basic functions of Windows (you agree you have read disclaimer before continuing).
Make a copy of this file to the C:\ drive and the USB flash drive for backup purposes.
(Do this regardless of if your computer is broken to create incremental backups of runs registry) then move on to the Regback folder.
Located in the RegBack folder is another file called SYSTEM which is a backup of the SYSTEM file from the original Windows installation.
Replace the file in Config with the SYSTEM file from Regback.
Now, the system has the original registry file.
Now restart your computer and see if Windows boots, it did for me:).
If it fails, return back to the Active @ Boot Disk and replace the backup you made on the USB drive or C:\ to revert back to what it was before you did any fix.
Then seek professional computer help.
I know how annoying of an experience it can be.
Some problems are that Windows doesn't even get past the loading Windows screen or one just gets a black screen with an error message like hal.
dll missing.
My personal most recent experience was on a new netbook.
I had just used a registry cleaning utility and when I rebooted Windows, I got an RPC server unavailable message.
This is pretty bad because all Windows services have dependencies on the RPC server, meaning only about 5 out of a 50 Windows services were able to start (essentially worse than Safe Mode) meaning wireless was disabled, themes were disabled, my computer looked awful.
If not for a system repair the only other option was to completely reformat and reinstall.
I decided to repair my Windows and this is how I did it without the Windows Disk and only a USB flash drive (netbooks don't have CD Rom drives).
Disclaimer: This method should only be undertaken by advanced computer users and could potentially damage a system.
This repair also may not be recommended depending on a unique system's configuration, you must seek expert advice prior to this repair.
Also, use this advice at your own risk and it is for demonstration only! There are no guarantees on success! These instructions are intended for Windows 7 and vary according to Windows operating system.
Make a full system backup and image before proceeding.
Note: First run a chkdsk or scan disk on the damaged computer by navigating to My Computer, then right clicking on the C: or OS drive and clicking Tools, Check Now, and then select both boxes and reboot.
You may have heard of a few repair tools that run in their own operating system environment.
The two easiest to use are WIndows PE (provided by Microsoft) and Active@ Boot Disk.
The Windows PE (microsoft) method can be tedious when installing on a usb thumb drive (windows pe is quite large and one needs at least a 2gb flash drive) and Microsoft doesn't offiically support installation.
Then there is the Active@ Boot Disk which is perhaps the best Windows Repair utility out there.
The installer from the website loads a custom lightweight Windows PE onto flash drive or CD Rom with just a few clicks of the mouse (need to use a working computer to do this).
Once you have your repair USB flash drive, reboot the troubled machine.
Depending on your computer you'll want enter the boot menu, this is frequently done by pushing f12 right when the computer starts up.
Select the usb port/drive or the cd room drive that contains the Active@ Boot Disk file.
Active @ Boot Disk will load.
Now once in the Active@ Boot Disk one will notice that it really resembles Windows in functionality.
Use the Windows like file manager to navigate to ones Windows folder and then to the system32 folder and finally to the config folder.
There you will find a file called SYSTEM.
SYSTEM is the registry for the entire system operation, one of the most basic functions of Windows (you agree you have read disclaimer before continuing).
Make a copy of this file to the C:\ drive and the USB flash drive for backup purposes.
(Do this regardless of if your computer is broken to create incremental backups of runs registry) then move on to the Regback folder.
Located in the RegBack folder is another file called SYSTEM which is a backup of the SYSTEM file from the original Windows installation.
Replace the file in Config with the SYSTEM file from Regback.
Now, the system has the original registry file.
Now restart your computer and see if Windows boots, it did for me:).
If it fails, return back to the Active @ Boot Disk and replace the backup you made on the USB drive or C:\ to revert back to what it was before you did any fix.
Then seek professional computer help.