vista registry corrupt

FluffySheep · 22 Jul 2010 at 13:01

following along from this thread on speeding up the PC (and the fact I haven't touched it in 3 years) I used regseeker to clear the rubbish out from my vista 64 bit registry. Regseeker foung 7000 errors, cleared them and the PC was fine until shutdown. It now will not boot in any mode, and I have seen an error complaining of a corrupt registry.

I have all the origional vista software, and it is currently checkling the hard drive for errors. I have tried restoring to a day before the regseeker **** up, no sucess.

Any ideas as to what to try? I don't want to format and reinstall (at least until I have had chance to do a fresh backup of files)

Ta in advance
FluffySheep

SiriusB · 22 Jul 2010 at 13:04

You could attempt a repair install. It is one of the options you get when booting from the installation DVD. Personal files and data will not be affected, but any kind of system settings/customization will be put back to default.

If possible, I would use something like a Linux Mint Live CD to transfer any really important files before the repair install - you just never know!

This is a really good case for why registry fixers/tuners/tweakers/optimisers and the rest are all utter crap and at best do nothing and at worst screw things up.

FluffySheep · 22 Jul 2010 at 13:14

I didn't think of using a boot CD to access the hard drive - great start. I tries a repair install, but 2 hours later nowt had happened. I assumed it had frozen but I'll try it again

Fluffy

Burnsy2023 · 22 Jul 2010 at 13:24

SiriusB said:
You could attempt a repair install.

The registry is one of the main things that a repair install tries not to touch, so I wouldn't hope too much on that working.

I know CCleaner makes a backup of the registry before deleting stuff, have you got such a backup?

FluffySheep · 22 Jul 2010 at 13:30

Burnsy2023 said:
I know CCleaner makes a backup of the registry before deleting stuff, have you got such a backup?

I saw the settings for backup so i know it did one. Any idea as to where the backup is stored?

Edit: Found the backup in the regseeker dir. I can get to it using command prompt, so lets see if I can sort it out

Burnsy2023 · 22 Jul 2010 at 13:38

FluffySheep said:
I saw the settings for backup so i know it did one. Any idea as to where the backup is stored?

Pass, but if you can find this file, you can restore the registry, I've done it before (albeit a while ago)

SiriusB · 22 Jul 2010 at 14:04

Burnsy2023 said:
The registry is one of the main things that a repair install tries not to touch, so I wouldn't hope too much on that working.

I know CCleaner makes a backup of the registry before deleting stuff, have you got such a backup?

Really?

I assumed it would fix invalid entries to files it had just reinstalled.

Burnsy2023 · 22 Jul 2010 at 14:10

SiriusB said:
Really?

I assumed it would fix invalid entries to files it had just reinstalled.

It fixes entries to system files, but if there are other registry entries causing issues your machine can still BSOD after a repair install.

Lanz · 22 Jul 2010 at 23:21

There are copies of previous registries in C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack (Windows7) it might be in a different location for Vista, as it is in XP/Win2003.

You need to get into the recovery console using the windows dvd, and overwrite the files in C:\Windows\System32\config\ (rename them first)

default
sam
security
software
system

are all the registry hives, these are the ones you need to replace.

Dano · 22 Jul 2010 at 23:57

Lanz said:
There are copies of previous registries in C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack (Windows7) it might be in a different location for Vista, as it is in XP/Win2003.

You need to get into the recovery console using the windows dvd, and overwrite the files in C:\Windows\System32\config\ (rename them first)

default
sam
security
software
system

are all the registry hives, these are the ones you need to replace.

Or if you cannot get into safe mode/command prompt at all plug the drive into another system and do it.