Windows has killed itself AGAIN!

sjt269 · 27 May 2007 at 21:06

Hmm. I can't actually get into Windows on that hard drive yet to do that. That HDD is hooked up as a slave drive to the one I'm on atm, so could I navigate to the registry of that hard drive via this one? Would it work?

I'm going to call a halt to the fixing of the hard drive soon, since I really need tomorrow's revision time, therefore no late night for me tonight, and no PC fixing tomorrow. Either I get things done now, or on Tuesday afternoon, because if I start playing with the PC, I'll end up killing something else that'll take me hours and hours to fix, and I'll just get all stressed out and depressed again.

:edit:

I see there's an 'Import' option in regedit that could work...where would I import from?

Andelusion · 27 May 2007 at 21:22

I feel for you tTz

sjt269 · 27 May 2007 at 21:50

Andelusion said:
I feel for you tTz

I thank you for your support in this most desperate of times.

basmic · 27 May 2007 at 22:41

tTz said:
Hmm. I can't actually get into Windows on that hard drive yet to do that. That HDD is hooked up as a slave drive to the one I'm on atm, so could I navigate to the registry of that hard drive via this one? Would it work?

I'm going to call a halt to the fixing of the hard drive soon, since I really need tomorrow's revision time, therefore no late night for me tonight, and no PC fixing tomorrow. Either I get things done now, or on Tuesday afternoon, because if I start playing with the PC, I'll end up killing something else that'll take me hours and hours to fix, and I'll just get all stressed out and depressed again.

:edit:

I see there's an 'Import' option in regedit that could work...where would I import from?

I'll knock up a reg file for you to import - give me a minute.

basmic · 27 May 2007 at 22:43

basmic said:
I'll knock up a reg file for you to import - give me a minute.

Here you go - all 328 bytes.

sjt269 · 28 May 2007 at 14:58

Okay, but where do I put it? I've only got access to the registry of this hard drive (the backup one, that's working). The other one is attached as a slave, but if I boot from it, it's the registry on that hard drive that'll need editing, but I can't get to it. If I boot from that hard drive, I get the error and an immediate restart. Booting from this hard drive gets me into Windows, but this is the working version of Windows, this one doesn't need patching, so if I edit the registry in this one, it won't help...will it? :confused:

Thanks for the file though, I'll use it as soon as I figure out if I'm doing the right thing or not.

basmic · 28 May 2007 at 15:22

There's a way of importing a registry file via the command-line - I'll Google for you

buachille · 28 May 2007 at 23:40

have you tried booting from a linux live cd and using this to copy the files to a (hopefully available) extra hard drive. i did this once when i was in your position and it worked.

although windows can't see a linux drive, linux can read windows (even ntfs).

sjt269 · 29 May 2007 at 14:07

buachille said:
have you tried booting from a linux live cd and using this to copy the files to a (hopefully available) extra hard drive. i did this once when i was in your position and it worked.

although windows can't see a linux drive, linux can read windows (even ntfs).

I can get to the files now by using the drive as a slave drive, but I can only back up some of the hard drive (to be fair, there's a lot of junk on there I'd be glad to lose) and it's still going to take ages for me to reinstall Windows, all the drivers, all my programs etc etc...

I've heard nLite mentioned as a way to speed up the install process, so next time I've got a fresh Windows install completed, I'll try playing with that to create an image, or whatever it's called, of a fresh Windows install.

I've got a few clear days til the next exam, so I might try and get everything backed up and burnt to disk, and I'll try to get a new Windows install done at the weekend.

I suppose the upside of this situation is that I've realised that while my motherboard can only read partitions up to 127Gb (old BIOS, never bothered flashing it), the extra 33Gb on the hard drive can be made into an extra partition, so I can still get the full amount of space from the hard drive. I never knew that, and that'll be a perfect space to keep music and stuff on (and the more important files, I suppose, since a reinstall of Windows wouldn't affect them in that case, would it?).

Come to think of it, maybe Windows would be better off in a small partition of its own, so that if it dies again, the rest of my data would be unaffected.

basmic · 29 May 2007 at 14:32

If you can afford it, your best insurance is another hard-drive.

My 250gb is partitioned - 100gb for Windows/games/programs, etc, and the remaining space is paritioned for bittorrent files, and such-like.

My 120gb drive is my backup drive, in a manner - everything important gets shunted on there, so if I lose anything on the C: (250gb) drive, then I know my D: drive has my important stuff.

Aside from the 120gb drive, I have a spare 160gb drive which I connect via the USB port. This drive is only powered up once every 2-3 months, only for a backup. Once the backup has finished, the drive is powered down and put back into an antistatic bag, wrapped in foam and put in a box.. Hopefully this way, I will always have a backup to bounce on to, should my 120gb see fit to die.

I gave up backing up to DVDs - it was tedious, and time consuming. I just use Nero BackItUp now.

sjt269 · 29 May 2007 at 15:01

Right now, I can't really afford another hard drive, but when (or if?) I get a new PC, I think I'll make sure a decent portion of the budget goes on hard drives and backup stuff. Which will push my already inflated £900 spec up even higher, so I may have to make some sacrafices somewhere, but I'd rather have slow data than no data.