How to edit reg. in Windows that won't boot.

For what it's worth...
Remember that I have a functioning copy of Vista on this drive too. I went into Vista's registry & recorded the hex values for the mountpoints (Vista mounts all drives successfully)

In order on the disk:

1st Partition: V:\ drive (the 5GB partition I re-created at the beginning of the drive.)

2nd Partition: D:\ drive (holds XP)

3rd Partition: C:\ drive (holds Vista)

Values:

V:\ drive: 00 00 00 30 00 7E 00 00 00 00 00 00

D:\ drive: 00 00 00 30 00 98 46 20 01 00 00 00

C:\ drive: 00 00 00 30 00 10 D1 15 09 00 00 00

 

The data from (D XP's hdd "D:\ drive: 00 00 00 30 00 98 46 20 01 00 00 00" will be what is needed in the XP's registry for its drive letter, what ever it is when booted.

 

OK, I used the CD, but it doesn't work very well. I see how to open the registry file, and get to the area I need to be in. The interface is much diffferent, so I thought I'd look for a syntax example; I opened the Vista registry, to see how the mountpoints are defined in there. ----They're blank! (yet Vista works)?!? In Regedt32, in Vista, they're all there.

I went into the XP registry, and they're blank too. --I decided to try to enter in the hex values as recorded from the Vista registry. It brings up the edit dialog, and I type in the info. I hit OK. --They're gone! It won't save anything....

I've got to be missing something regarding using this CD. Too bad I can't 'load remote hive' on the Vista side, and bring the XP registry into the Vista regedt.

Any other ideas?

 

Might try a different way, but it does have 1 drawback. Right now , if I read correctly, XP sees itself as D: and doing the below XP will be C:, so boot only into safe-mode and do nothing in the OS.

IF you have not, back up the registry folder first.

Use the CloneZilla LiveCD , you will run 'fdisk /dev/xxx' where xxx= linux hdd identification (sda). If the ID is unknown first run 'fdisk -l' l=small L, and it will list the ID.

in the 'fdisk /dev/xxx' window :
m=menu
t=change partition ID
w=write and exit
Change all partitions except the XP partition to hidden (17).
save and exit

reboot- use your ' bootable flash-drive', be sure to start pressing F8 and select safe mode.
Hopefully it will boot into XP.
If it does, reboot using the 'CloneZilla LiveCD ' - run 'fdisk /dev/xxx' and change partition ID's back to '07' NTFS file system. reboot into hdd and see if all works.

Some times when XP tries to boot but the 'mountpoint' is not correct, it can not correctly decided on what partition to use and will cross boot into 2 different installed OS or partition with no OS. If the partition ID's are changed to 'hidden' then it has no choice but boot into the one thats left. After a successful boot it seems to correct the 'mountpoint' data.

I do the above when ever I clone XP on to a logical volume. With the exception XP is always seen as C: and I do not need to boot into safe mode. I think the same will hold true even on primary partitions.

Remember this is free advice and you get what you pay for.

 

TopFarmer - thanks for all the info -- I use CloneZilla alot at work; I love it. -it beats Ghost running on BartPE. I read something weeks ago, where someone said they had to hide/disable their CD drive before the OS would boot. Your solution sounds along the same rationale - we have to make all other partitions go away, to force XP into dealing with only one single partition.

You're correct: C:\ is Vista, which works fine, and D:\ is XP, which boots to a ctrl-alt-del login, but suffers the login/logout loop.

I'll post what I come up with...

 

Darn...


I marked all partitions as Hidden, except for the one holding XP. I then booted into safe-mode. It booted up to the point just before the 'graphical' mode kicks in (right after all the messages that begin:

Multi(0)Disk(0)Partition(2)\WINDOWS\system32\drivers.xxxxx.xxxxxx

(an example, don't pay any attention to that ARC path...)

It stayed there for 20 sec, just like I've seen other safe-boots do, then it rebooted itself with no other error. When I booted back, I tried something.. "Last Known Good Configuration" is written after you *successfully* login, correct? I thought, now that I have all the partitions disabled except for XP, maybe I'll boot Last Known Good, and see what happens. It booted to the Ctrl-Alt-Del prompt, and sure enough, logged me right back off when I tried to log in.

No change.

Something interesting... You know when windows 'checks the disk', and it looks like:

Windows is checking the C:\ drive
Windows is done checking the disk....

Remember how XP is installed on the D:\ drive? -and remember that all other partitions are disabled? --Windows said it was checking the G:\ drive! Probably nothing good will come of that.

The G:\ drive is way out there, but the CD drive is in there, and the small sda1 partition is the V:\ drive, and I've got a small 40G disk on another controller, and that's the E:\ drive or something. I don't know how it came up with G:\...

 

It will be seen as C: at that point of booting (I think), the only Windows partition on hdd.

You might have a different problem, or 2.

G: is very likely the flash-drive .

XP could be trying to complete its boot into the other hdd or flash-drive. If so, remove the 2nd hdd and make XP partition bootable. Make partition Active and be sure the boot files are in root of XP, then boot directly to hdd with no other storage drives in system, the cd should be OK. I do not have a flash-drive and do remove my other hdd, did not think of that. I do think it would fail booting before the log-in point if there were no other partitions with Windows installed but I do not have the log-in screen on normal boot to ever see.

I am making a guess on problem, when the start of XP partition is moved.

Guess I have said little and will post.

 

I'll try this, but XP boots via the Vista Boot loader which I couldn't fix. Therefore, I had to make the bootable flash drive. If I boot via the Vista Boot Loader, I get "Missing /NTLDR" Plus, the Vista Partition is disabled. Even if there was a boot loader at the beginning of the XP partition, the start of that partition isn't near enough to the center of the disk, for it to be recognized I don't think...

I can try booting to the OS prompt (off the flash drive) then remove the flash drive. ---Wait 30 sec, then hit <enter> I wonder if enough is in RAM to the point where it wouldn't try to access the Flash drive again, after I removed it.

I woldn't doubt that the G:\ drive is the flash drive. --Interesting that it didn't say anything about checking the C:\ drive.