Copying the reg Hive

[dmanleygen]

Just had a thought!

How could I put a command into the beginning of start up that would copy the registry to say a USB key or a second HDD or an external HDD?

Any ideas of where to go? or how to perform an action like this?

The idea would be that windows os would not be using the reg hive at this stage!?! So they could be copied?

Any suggestions or am I completly wrong on this one?

Thank you,
Derry

 

[acl03]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308422/

You can schedule this to run on startup, or at a set time with the task scheduler...



Thanks,
Andrew

 

[rvnguy]

dmanleygen,

I am not sure why you think you need to do this??

Win does it on a normal basis upon each shutdown, hard or soft.

The permanent parts of the registry are stored as a set of files (called hives) that should never be directly edited. You can also find a list of locations for these hives in the hivelist entry in KLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control.

The following hives, which store four of the five registry keys in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, are permanently saved (and updated with each logon) in %systemroot%\System32\config:

SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, SYSTEM and DEFAULT.
The HARDWARE key is not stored as a hive, because it is recreated each time the system starts.

Backups of these hives are kept in %systemroot%\repair.

Do you want the registry backed up? or the Hives?

If you want to make an additional copy though you can by copying the files in %systemroot%\repair to a location you prefer. If you automate this take care to define a device that will be available & writeable at the time you choose to do this.

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[linney]

This program can backup your Registry on every startup and restore it under many different circumstances where Windows fails to start properly.

Registry Backup and Restore for Windows NT/2000/2003/XP

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

Look for the latest version here:

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

 

[dmanleygen]

acl03 - I have already come across this but the issue is that this back up can be quite large (in my home PC it ran to over 300 Mb). My hope was to have something running at the beginning of every boot so that an archive of the reg could be created that could help monitor and maintain a pc. I have just started fixing peoples PC as a side line thing, not a business or anything like that and if it was possible to set up something like this on a pc over a period of time one could use it to restore or investigate an issue with that pc.

It was just a flash in the pan idea.

rvnguy - Yes that is done on most win but I'm not sure about XP, as far as I know (which isn't far) this is not performed in XP. Also the repair folder only contains a copy of the initial install reg not an actual back up but more like a foot print of what the pc looked like day one.
Also if there is an issue it can be quite difficult to access those file from the recovery console. But if I had a source where I know the last few good reg files were stored that would help in repairing a pc with a reg issue.
linney's link leads to a "Detailed information" Link which explains exactly what I'm on about.


linney - This is exactly what I was looking to do, haven't investigated this s/w yet so thanks for the input.

I'm hoping to have something simple what could be deployed easily from a WinPE cd of some form. So the idea is that, stick in a cd it load up a command that will do this at start up and from there come back in a few days and see what the reg has been doing and restore if any problems occur.

As I said this was just a quick little idea,

Thanks a million for all your comments.
Can't wait till I have my Win PE CD all nice and tidy and full of utilities!

Derry Manley

 

[dmanleygen]

Just on a side:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307545

This is the MS support for restoring the reg in a corrupt PC. Reading the fine print and warning can be quite terrifying!!!

A blue screen error on friends pc lead me to this article, then the fun started as i tried to get this working I realised that the repair reg files were 3 years old and not working, so then I tried to go hunting into the System Volume Information folder looking for a recent restore reg back up!

Oh the joy of it all!!!

 

[Auger282]

dmanleygen... wow

thats the nasyist hack I've ever seen in the KB.. lol

I feel sorry for the engineer that had to come up with that one

 

[cyberspace]

acl03 - will the native windows backup backup everything onto another media to the extent that it could be restored and fully booted in the event of a failure?

Say i used the tool to back up to a second hard disk - if the primary hard disk failed, would i be able to use the backup disk to run as normal?

'When all else fails.......read the manual'

 

[dmanleygen]

cyberspace - If I may, the answer to that I believe is no. The file format is .bkf which can only be opened by the backup/restore application within win so you need to have win working!?! (Don’t know if it works in dos, don’t think it does!)
Bit of a catch 22! The main reason to backup such critical stuff would be for virus/worm problem or a non booting system, in which case there is a good chance that you can't restore anyway. What I was looking for is a way to backup the critical stuff and then from boot disk (CD or floppy) restore the critical items from an external source (USB, external hdd, network, etc...) and see if that works.

Auger282 - Yes it was nasty, I gave up in the end and did a clean install after retrieving the main media/private files from his PC.
From that KB it does look as though it is possible to copy those files during boot (?) and then retrieving them from that external source via dos or Boot CD. This could be a nice way to restore a clean reg from when the pc was working and maybe not have to do too much back tracking.

Toodles for now!

Derry

 

[linney]

An easy to follow recovery console description when unable to start computer due to corrupt registry.

http://www.digitalwebcast.com/2002/03_mar/tutorials/cw_boot_toot.htm

This is a layman's version of Q307545 in simple language.



You might be able to make use of BartPE (a mini XP self contained on a bootable CD and run from CD).

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Ultimate Boot CD.

http://www.windowsubcd.com/index.htm