Re: Windows 2000 Expert Needed

"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1142032589.238106.165350@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My life may actually be over this time.

Won't boot. winnt\system32\cofig\system is missing or
corrupt (it says)

This means that the disk is good enough for NT to try to boot, but not good
enough to even get started loading the registry.

It's not missing, so it must be corrupt.

In some sense, yes.

I can boot from
the installation CD and use the Recovery Console to look
at the disk.

First shot - run CHKDSK with appropriate parameters to do as much checking
and recovery as possible. On a good day this can fix your problem and yield
a bootable system.

Second shot - Obtain another hard drive and install Win2K (or XP) on it and
use it to recover any user data from the first drive that you want to save.
Things are *that* bad. :-(

Doing this positions you well for taking any future steps. A booted copy of
win2k or XP can do everything to another system disk that is not booted that
the recovery console can do, but in a more familiar context.

There is a product called ERD that provides a highly expanded recovery
console.

The file isn't missing so it must be
corrupt. I tried using the Recovery floppy disk. It said
it fixed the problem, but it didn't. I installed a fresh
copy of Windows on a spare drive, booted up using that
drive, and tried to copy the corrupt from the good drive
to the one that didn't boot. It said it couldn't copy the
file.

Overlaying or copying the system part of the registry is a risky
proposition.

There's a procedure for recovering an XP system in this state, but XP saves
much more stuff for recovery.

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

The key part of the XP procedure that can make it a 99.99% solution is the
stuff that is saved by System Restore facility. In XP if you get a system
that will at least boot in Safe mode, you can run System Restore and get
back a pretty much operational system. No System Restore facility in Win2k,
right?

Some the same files are present in XP and Win2k. I believe the system,
software, sam, security, and default files are present in both XP and Win2k
although the folder names may vary.

If win2k has the c:\windows\repair folder, the WinXP technique shown in the
KB article will probably work for Win2k as well. This results in a bootable
system, but one that lacks a lot of function, like most of the software that
you installed.

If win2k has the c:\windows\repair folder, but does have a
c:\windows\system32\config folder then you can copy the respective files
from another copy of win2k. As long as you copy these files as a set, you
can have something that works. If you try to mix and match them, from
different systems, some things will probably be broken, and the system might
not boot.

Note the linked article 309531 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309531/)
that has addtional hints for dealing with a NTFS-based system if that is
what you have. It tells you how to unprotect some protected files.


.

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