WinXP not booting after a registry alteration.

[fisholith]

UPDATE: (last checked:sep 4)
I知 still looking for a solution. Particularly, I知 wondering the following.
1: Can the Windows XP system restore points be used manually?
2: Can anything from the diagnostic partition be used manually?
3: What files comprise the registry in XP, and where are they?
4: Given a working copy of windows on one drive (I値l call "GoodWindows") and a broken version of windows on another drive (I値l call "BadWindows"), is there any 3rd party recovery application that can run from "GoodWindows" and then remotely make use of the "BadWindows" system restore points to fix "BadWindows"? (It seems like it should be quite possible to make program that could perform that operation.)
Thanks.

--------------------------------------------
Original Post:
In the course of cloning and replacing an old 200gb hard drive, I found that the new 400gb drive was booting with the wrong drive letters. Instead of C and D, it was using J and F respectively.

So, I looked around for a means of fixing that and found several examples explaining that you simply change a few registry values.

As directed, I opened regedit, browsed to "MountedDevices"

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

and renamed the following items:

"\DosDevices\C:" to "\DosDevices\J:"
"\DosDevices\J:" to "\DosDevices\C:"
"\DosDevices\D:" to "\DosDevices\F:"
"\DosDevices\F:" to "\DosDevices\D:"

After restarting the computer, I received the following foreboding message:

"Media test failure, check cable"

That is as far as I can get.
Fortunately, I can still access the new 400gb drive (the one not booting) as a secondary drive. Unfortunately, that has not helped much.

I imagine that if I were able to get the Windows System Restore application, I could simply restore back to before the damaging change occurred. Thus far, I have not even yet been able to get to safe mode on that disk.

Additional System specs:
- Gateway 507 GR
- WinXP SP2 patch
- Pentium 4 (3.0 GHz)
- 2GB ram
- 2 optical drives
- geForce 6800 Ultra

If anyone has any suggestions or advice, I would appreciate it greatly.
Thanks.

[unlovedwarrior]

reformat that drive and all should be good

[ale52]

I'd suggest putting in the XP cd, booting to it and doing a repair.

Alan <><  

[unlovedwarrior]

if the computer has never been reformatted this might be a good time to clean and refresh it.. so its really up to you. you can try a repair and have the gumed up computer with an repaired register or you can back up anything important and reformat and start fresh like it just came out of the box. chose your path and we will walk you threw it

[fisholith]

I would prefer to get the system running again, rather than reformat the drive. At the moment I don稚 have the time to reinstall everything.

So, a "How to get windows to boot properly again" walkthrough would be much appreciated.

That said, I have tried a great many methods thus far. Including the "Recovery Consol" method, the "System Volume Information" method and the "Windows\Repair folder" method. That痴 not to discourage anyone from writing or recommending a walkthrough of the methods listed above. I am certainly willing to try any method again, as I might yet find some important additional step that was not present in the any of the versions I tried.

Thanks again everyone.

[rusi]

Hi,there maybe if you tried to partion this new hard drive you will be ok,but all data it will be lost.Usually during the partion you will set up the drive letters.

[GX1_Man]

What software did you use to "clone and replace"?

Do you have a real XP disc? If so, this may help:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/doug92.mspx

[fisholith]

Thanks for the suggestions.

While I am entirely confident that formatting the disk and reinstalling everything would leave me with a working computer, I would prefer to fix the copy of windows I currently have.

I do have an old WinXP disc.
I have not yet tried doing a repair from the CD, because I am not sure about the following:
A. If I repair from the CD can I then use windows System Restore application to roll back windows to a prior working state?
B. Is a repair from the CD reversible in the event that it does not work.

Thanks again

[Dusty]

Replies - A. very unlikely, B. No.

Quote from your post:
"renamed the following items:
 
"\DosDevices\C:" to "\DosDevices\J:"
"\DosDevices\J:" to "\DosDevices\C:"
"\DosDevices\D:" to "\DosDevices\F:"
"\DosDevices\F:" to "\DosDevices\D:"

Seems you renamed C: to J: but J: was already in use then you renamed J: back to C:  Then the same process with D: and F:

Did you still have the old drive installed when you rebooted after cloning, if so bios may have gotten all confused.

Recommend you physically uninstall the old drive, amend your bios to reflect the new drive then reboot to see if the correct letter configuration is set up at boot time.

But before doing anything - backup, backup, backup.

[ricky1me]

In the future after you have restored the system and set up the desktop and all, you should get a disk imaging product and make a copy of the entire o/s partition and save it to cd's. Just old fashioned backup technology. So if your HD goes bad or you get a virus or whatever you simply copy back the entire, customized partition, boot and you are up.
However, it does require regular savings of your datafiles so you can update those - like I said regular, old fashioned backup habits. Thanks

[fisholith]

In answer to some of the above questions:

To be more specific I renamed them in the following order.
C > X
J > C
X > J
D > Y
F > D
Y > F
So as far as I知 aware, there was no naming conflict.

I tried to boot without the old drive installed, but if I recall correctly it didn稚 work. So, I then reinstalled the old drive as a secondary, and the computer booted, but the new drive was given drive letters J and F rather than C and D. It was at that point that I found a walkthrough, edited the registry and subsequently precipitated the disaster at hand. I did however export the registry just before editing it. I知 not sure what information Regedit exports when you tell it to export, but it is definitely not a backup. At any rate, it looks like you have to be able to run Regedit from the ill version windows to utilize the registry backups, and that is not likely to be doable.

As an aside I did back up all my personally created content before doing anything with the drives.

Ironically, I am beginning to think that the old hard drive was working just fine, and that it was a faulty power cable. It seems to spin without interruption on any of the new power cables.

To clarify my current drive situation:
My old sata 200gb drive wont boot to windows. (Likely due to a registry alteration)
My new sata 400gb drive wont boot to windows. (Likely due to a registry alteration)
If I can get windows to work again on either drive, my problems will be solved.
I have one more new sata 200gb drive that I bought so I could use a new installation of windows to fix the new drive 400gb for the sake of clarity I値l probably refer to it as the "Rescue Drive". Oh, and because my WinXP CD is so old, the 200gb "Rescue Drive" thinks it is 137gb.

Lastly, does anyone know of an application that can perform a system restore on a non-running copy of windows? i.e. From the "Rescue Drive" could I run Windows System Restore as if from the currently non-functional version of on my now secondary new 400gb drive?

Thanks again

[Dusty]

Sorry, I have no further words of wisdom to try to solve your problem.

However, remember, in XP you cannot Export the entire registry for backup purposes, it just doesn't work that way.  If you do and then Import the Registry the saved version will merge with the existing Registry and likely give you double the trouble.  Here is the MS kb on backing up the registry.  Only individual Registry entries should be Exported for backup when editing the Registry.

A tried & proved utility for Registry backup is Erunt if you don't want to use the MS Backup utility.

Good luck

[soybean]

However, remember, in XP you cannot Export the entire registry for backup purposes, it just doesn't work that way.  If you do and then Import the Registry the saved version will merge with the existing Registry and likely give you double the trouble.  Here is the MS kb on backing up the registry.  Only individual Registry entries should be Exported for backup when editing the Registry.

I believe the above comments are not correct.  Even the MS link you cited discusses full Registry backup as an option.

[fisholith]

Duly noted. However, I知 not sure that backing up a registry will necessarily help at this time. I appreciate the info though.

My original drive does have a diagnostic partition. Is there any way to use that to my advantage?

[Dusty]

However, remember, in XP you cannot Export the entire registry for backup purposes, it just doesn't work that way.  If you do and then Import the Registry the saved version will merge with the existing Registry and likely give you double the trouble.  Here is the MS kb on backing up the registry.  Only individual Registry entries should be Exported for backup when editing the Registry.

I believe the above comments are not correct.  Even the MS link you cited discusses full Registry backup as an option.

Soybean - I entirely agree with you, however the article discusses [highlight]Backup[/highlight] of the entire registry not [highlight]Exporting[/highlight] the entire registry for backup.

Here are relevant extracts from the article - the highlighting is mine..

Manual steps to [highlight]export registry subkeys[/highlight]
You can follow these steps to export a registry subkey before you edit it.

Note[highlight] Do not follow these steps to export a whole registry subtree. [/highlight](HKEY_CURRENT_USER is an example of such a subtree.) [highlight]If you must back up whole registry subtrees, back up the whole registry instead.[/highlight]
1.      Click Start, and then click Run.
2.      In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3.      Locate and then click the subkey that contains the value that you want to edit.
4.      On the File menu, click Export.
5.      In the Save in box, select a location where you want to save the Registration Entries (.reg) file, type a file name in the File name box, and then click Save.

[highlight]Manual steps to back up the whole registry[/highlight]
To back up the whole registry, use the [highlight]Backup utility to back up the system state[/highlight]. The system state includes the registry, the COM+ Class Registration Database, and your boot files. For more information about using the Backup utility to back up the system state, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
308422 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308422/) How to use Backup to back up files and folders on your computer in Windows XP
320820 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320820/) How to use the Backup utility to back up files and folders in Windows XP Home Edition

***end of extracts***

Exporting the entire registry for backup was aceptable prior to Win.2000 (Win9x etc.) and Importing was the reverse but with the advent of NT things changed dramatically.  I wish that Import/Export of the full NT registry was an option and have tried but it results in a real mess..

However I will admit to having been wrong in the past and no doubt will be again but the supporting evidence is there for all to browse.

Here is an excellent article from Eldergeeks where Erunt is also mentioned..

Had Fisholith opted for either method he [highlight]may[/highlight] have at least have been able to get back to the System State before the registry alterations.  I fear there is no option now but to do a repair install.

Good luck.