Member Avatar for juba

I messed up my installation of XP by resetting during shutdown (:rolleyes: at me). After that I couldn't start up as I'd get a really quick blue screen and a restart after the XP loading screen. I think it was complaining about a registry file missing but I can never make out what it says since it's only visible for a fraction of a second.

I booted from my XP CD and it was supposed to detect my previous installation. It didn't. So what I did was made a new installation which I am on right now. It works fine except the internet connection is a bit sluggish and of course none of the programs installed on the original installation are available. I've managed to save all the important files onto another computer through a network. I ran the boot CD again and now it did detect an XP installation, the new one. :cry:

Is there anyway to repair my old installation or to quickly get the programs from the old installation to the new one?

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Dani AI

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Good call, — filming the boot is exactly the sort of low-effort trick that lets you read a fast BSOD and identify which registry hive failed (your “software” note fits the common SOFTWARE-hive failure). When the XP setup/repair program won't detect a previous install it's usually because one or more hive files under %windir%\System32\Config are missing or corrupt; Microsoft’s documented recovery flow replaces those hives with copies from the Repair image or from a System Restore snapshot. (winhelponline.com)

If you want a short, practical recovery checklist (assumes you can boot the XP CD to the Recovery Console): first image or back up the drive and run chkdsk /r from Recovery Console to rule out filesystem damage; then rename the current hive files and copy the repair hives back into place. Example Recovery Console sequence (type each line, press Enter): 

cd \windows\system32\config
ren system system.bak
ren software software.bak
ren sam sam.bak
ren security security.bak
ren default default.bak

copy \windows\repair\system \windows\system32\config\system
copy \windows\repair\software \windows\system32\config\software
copy \windows\repair\sam \windows\system32\config\sam
copy \windows\repair\security \windows\system32\config\security
copy \windows\repair\default \windows\system32\config\default
exit

That restores the original install registry so Windows can boot; the full KB/restore-snapshot flow then replaces those with a later System Restore snapshot if available. (winhelponline.com)

About your programs: simply copying C:\Program Files is not a reliable way to “move” installed applications. Installers (MSI or setup programs) register components, services and many registry keys; without those entries the copied binaries usually won’t run or will be unstable. If you need to recover settings or license keys, mount the old install as a secondary drive, use regedit -> File -> Load Hive to open the old SOFTWARE or a user NTUSER.DAT, export only the specific application keys you need, then unload the hive and import carefully on the new system. Do not blindly import entire hives. (learn.microsoft.com)

If the manual steps are uncomfortable, boot media like ERD Commander/DaRT or trusted rescue CDs can present a GUI to restore snapshot hives with less typing; otherwise the safest path is to image the disk, attempt the hive restore, and if that fails perform a repair-install or reinstall and restore user data. (winhelponline.com)

Member Avatar for robclaisse

Hi Juba,

Did you ever find a solution to this problem?

I;ve got the exact same issue and can't face re-installing all my applications in the new OS !

Thanks

Rob

Member Avatar for juba

Hi Juba,

Did you ever find a solution to this problem?

I;ve got the exact same issue and can't face re-installing all my applications in the new OS !

Thanks

Rob

Yeah I did :cool:

I took a videocamera and recorded my computer starting up. Then I slowly replayed the tape and I was able to check the error message. It turned out that one of the registry files indeed was damaged, the software file. I went on the Microsoft support site (http://support.microsoft.com/) and put in the error name/number in the search. From there I found a good step by step guide on how to replace the files through the Microsoft recovery console. It wasn't difficult at all and all my files were safe :p

Try to find out exactly what the error message is and go the Microsoft support site and it should help you fix it.

Good luck!

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