starts - reboots-starts...

[Extras]

Hello

The history behind this problem is that over the weekend I started getting a systemd error when I would boot up my W2k Professional machine. I would get the following message:

Windows 2000 could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEMd startup options for Windows 2000, press F8

Well, I was stuck because I do not have an Emergency Repair Disk for this computer... so I posted a question on the microsoft newsgroups. Dave Patrick there helped me through quite a bit as I am a total novice when it comes to inner workings of Windows and DOS. After trying out a bunch of things the last thing I ended up doing was his suggestion of:

One of the suggestions was:
Failing all of this try;
(note: the files in \repair are the original as-installed copies of the
registry)
del C:\windows\system32\config\system
copy C:\windows\repair\system C:\windows\system32\config
restart for effect

Now when windows starts up..and I see the W2K graphic against the white background..and the progress bar is completed - I see a momenatry screen of some DOS-like commands (just a flash) and then the computer reboots itself...and then it goes into a cycle of this closing and rebooting...

I am looking at your suggestion above should the copy line actually be:
copy C:\windows\repair\system C:\windows\system32\config\system

the reason for that is because the first line mentions to delete a reference that ends in system - while the destination of the copy file ends only with config - I just thought the delete and the destination of the copy should be the same.

Any advice will be deeply appreciated and the first thing I will do is create the Emergency Recovery Disk!

 

[chriseubank]

reinstall

 

[Chackt]

Hello Extras. You won't believe that, but I had incredibly the same error some weeks ago (or days), and highly strangely, it also occured without any sense, without any precedent, without any notice or warning before the system got corrupted. Everything worked perfectly!! Even i didn't install any application in that week! It is, No applications, No drivers, NOTHING!!! WINDOWS JUST THOUGHT: "HEY, IT'S THE PERFECT DAY TO MESS WITH CHACKT, LET'S DO IT!". And it was also incredibly wicked because i was in a HURRY to do WORK. Well... leaving apart my unpleasant experencies with Windows 3.1/9x/2k/xp, and fortunately, knowing that i'm not the only one having problems with microsoft, i'll comment a pair of important things i used to solve that problem without reinstalling:

- I investigated about 'windows registry', and i learnt that copying back, as you rightly said, the registry from c:\windows\repair\*(all files) to c:\windows\system32\config i would get back my INITIAL REGISTRY DATA. It is, if you do so, you almost do the same than installing a new system with the following counter-indication: It will be not as stable as would be with a new fresh system (Maybe it goes well now, but tomorrow your marvellous 2k/xp crashes unexpedtedly and dexterously (ardously in real world).

- So, the best point is that I investigated further away and i found that another windows folder keeps track of... random registry 'backups' that it decides randomly to do (if the user doesn't know how to backup it manually or if you just get errors while trying to do that, as in my case), it was the c:\System Volume Information folder, a hidden, system and theoretically read-only one. It is, in this folder, you'll have more recent copies of your reg. Then, in order to be able to copy it into the system, microsoft decided to go further away also in this way, to make it more difficult for you to enjoy with an stable system. You'll have to add security permissions for your user/group for that folder (security tab, you know i hope). Well, once you have your permissions to the folder, you'll see two main subfolders with the name 'restore' in its beginning and then an extensive list of numbers between curly brackets. It's at that point that you should go to View, Details menu in order to see which is your last copy, then enter in that one and, in the next subfolder (if there are more than one, enter in each one)until you find the 'snapshot' folder. It's there where windows stores secretly, its more recent registry copies.

Maybe you already tried to restore the system through F8 while booting, and selecting 'Last good working values' (or something like this), but the problem comes in that you have, probably, the repair registry files corrupted or something like that, just as i had (When i tried to boot, in fact, the system showed for the first time a blue screen but then quickly rebooted preventing me to see it again or to see it calmly.

SO, I DID THE NEXT SOLUTION:

I mixed the files the worked for each cathegory of registry. It is, i copied the SYSTEM file from c:\windows\repair, and the others (software, sam, services) from c:\System Volume Information.

If it doesnt work for you, you can try to do another combination. Just keep probing. I bet you will have at last your system up again, though you'll go finding problems cause you'll have to reinstall drivers (at least).
With some luck you'll have not to reinstall your apps.

For that issue, you can use either Recovery console (from win2k cd) or with 'Safe mode', though this last one didn't work for me.

Greetings.

 

[bcastner]

Win2k Registry Repair Utility:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...01-2c68-4de8-9229-ca494362419c&displaylang=en