Bobs Tech Talk News and Reviews

Repairing an broken windows boot with a missing system32/config file

The easy way.

Ok now we have all done the boot to windows CD and ran chdsk /r and fixboot with fixmbr.

But sometimes it just won’t work, here a quick way that so far has fixed everything I have thrown at it.

Get a copy of Ubuntu Linix
Throw your copy in and boot to it on the broken system. The OS will load and then ask you if you wish to try it or install it. Click try, sit back and wait a min.
Once you get to the desktop click on places>Filesystem
The file system should have a number in front of it that will the size of your HDD
Once inside your HDD go to system volume information.
Once in here look for a folder called _restore-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(xxx should be random numbers and letters)
Go in here you will see a bunch of RP folders with numbers next to them. These are restore points folders. Find the latest restore point and pick the one before that. Click in there and find a folder called snapshot.
Once inside here folder your file called _registry_machine_system.
Minimize this window.
Open another instance of your HDD (places> File system)
This time go to Windows/system32/config.
Find the SYSTEM file and rename SYSTEM.old.
Now go back to your _registry_machine_system file copy it and paste it in to system32/config and rename the file to SYSTEM.

Once all this is done, go to the top right of the OS and find the power button click it pick shut down, when it asks you to remove the disk do so, and hit enter. Let the system fully power off then turn it back on, with some luck you have ticked the system in to using an older system config file but with your changes from the last restore point. Remember restore points are made with every windows update so worst case you might lose a program that was installed a week earlier.

Hope this helps.

Scott