[blackops7799]

Well... I messed up my registry in my computers hard-drive. I made it a slave in my sisters computer thinking I could fix the problem. I opened regedit and I could only change the registry of my sisters computer. I just need to know a simple, easy, non-risky way of editing the registry of my slave hard-drive so I can fix the problem I caused and be able to use it again. I also tried the registry edit over the network thing, but it was not letting me access my computer.

If you have any ideas, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[Kalim]

I can do it myself, but I won't advise someone not proficient with the registry to do it, sorry. There will be a lot of potential problem holes.

How did you mess it up though, maybe you can expand and it may be simple?

Did you not make a registry backup?

Do you have any System Restores saved before the registry corruption? That will work too.

 

[blackops7799]

I did save a backup of the registry before it happend, and also I have a restore point for system restore. What caused the problem though was that I tried to change my main hard-drive letter to "C" by using this, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188. It was annoying because for some reason my drive letter was "I"... I know I could fix the problem if I had access to the registry... Just tell me how to restore my system without having to log on and that would be all I need.

 

[blackops7799]

It is also not letting me in safe mode. This is because it is looking for a file to allow me to log on witch it can't access because it is still looking in the "I" drive.

 

[Kalim]

Do you have an XP CD?

 

[blackops7799]

Yes. I am able to get to the recovery console with it.

 

[Kalim]

It's isn't that simple anymore, that's why the drive letter changing is not applicable for a bootup drive unless XP was originally installed as C:\. It's quite a mess now, and you're lucky you can still access the drive. I doubt the software on it will still work though, but that depends on how deep the change was.

In either case, have the system backed up after making it slave. Do this at first on a separate drive. You can attempt to first restore the drive letter whist having your HDD as Slave on your sisters computer and going into Start>Run>type: diskmgmt.msc hit Enter.

Click on the drive and choose "change drive letter and path". Make sure to put it back to what it was before, i.e. "I:\". Then try putting it back in your system and booting from it to see if it works. If not you'll have to attempt the rest of the serious methods outlined below:

If you can, bootup using something like the free bootup XP Disks, then they will allow to get your system started and startup RegEdit or any third party registry editor to revert the changes.

You can also use BartPE or better UBCD4Win to boot from and try this method. Whether they will allow access to the Windows registry is something I doubt though, as it'll be unloaded and there will be many bits and bats unchanged that way.

However, here are the Microsoft support methods, which are much more reliable:-

This is the complete one requiring many steps: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

The base MS files here are changed. But it's the best shot at complete recovery.

And this is the short hand to try before the above: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304449

See how they go. :smile: