Technofyed

HELP!!! My computer locked up and when I rebooted I got a message saying that windows/system32/config is corrupt (or something like that). It's saying to put in the disk and hit r to do a repair. It does it in safe mode as well. The problem is that I don't have the disk because it didn't come with one!!! It has XP pro service pack 3 on it. What do I do???

If it doesn't have a XP disk than it more than likely have a recovery partition so when it boots up look for it to say which key to hit to start the recovery or something like that. You might also try your owner's manual.

Thanks for the reply unfortunately I didn't see anything about any recovery options and user's manual doesn't say anything about that either. Any other ideas?

The file that is corrupt is the Windows Registry. You must either take the drive to another machine, or boot off a boot disk.

Once you are able to read the drive following either of the above two suggestions, navigate to the \WINDOWS\System32\config directory. In here you will see the windows registry files. Now we want to create a backup of all the Windows system files, the one that is corrupt will error out & will not allow you to copy it.


Again, the one that errors out is our target. Delete the file that is corrupt & failed to copy. Sorry, but you loose it, there is no way (to my knowledge) to repair it.

Now check under "\WINDOWS\repair\system" & see if you have a backup copy of the registry file. If so copy it from there to the current directory (\WINDOWS\System32\config\) & reboot.

Your system will be usable, but most likely you will need to reinstall all of your programs.

The registry--I didn't think about that. Unfortunately I only know enough about computers to break them. So that said how to I create a boot disk? Do I have to use the CD which again I don't have? Second problem with your solution is that the hard drive is encrypted so would the boot disk still work? I'm sorry that I failed to mention that initially. A third problem with this is that this is a laptop. So provided I can still do all this how do I know what the copy of the registry is?

You have too many things in place preventing you to do this. I don't feel comfortable walking you any further. Sorry.

This is a service that I provide out of our shop, & I just recently did this last week.

Maybe some of the other members on this board can assist you further.

Without a boot disk or the ability to read/write to the drive in another machine, then I cannot help you further. Sorry.

Yeah the hard drive encryption complicates things and personally I've never had to deal with problems that involve a hard drive that is encrypted. This isn't by chance a work computer? That would explain a number of things. If it is then you really should call you're companies' technical support and have them help, after all it is their computer. I wish that there is something that we could do but there is only so much help that we can provide without having access to it.

So thats it? There's nothing anyone here can do? Yes it is a work computer and we do have an IT department but I really wanted to get it fixed before returning to work Tuesday because I know that it'll take all day for him to do everything that he needs to do and I don't have the time to go without it that long. I have too much to do!!!

Sorry but it seems to be that way. It's risky--and sometimes not possible--for us to try and help fix problems with a work computer since sometimes employers require the computer to be set up certain ways that home computers typically aren't and really only the company's technician(s) have the specifics on how they need to be set up. In your case perhaps the biggest complication (from what we know about the computer) is the hard drive encryption but that might not be the only one. Sometimes the end user, which would be you, isn't an administrator on the computer so that even further limits what we can do. That said I hope that you realize that no matter how long it takes it is best to take it to the company's technician after all it isn't yours. It's really his responsibility to fix your problem and not ours or even yours since that it what he is paid for. I'm sure that some people there would give anything to go for a day without their computer & in that way have an undeniable excuse to have a lighter day compared to their normal day. Go ponder that. In addition that would leave us susceptible-as well as you-to legal ramifications for helping out on a computer without the owner's consent. In addition depending on their policies such actions might result in your termination. We welcome any further requests for help with a personal computer.

(05-30-2010 08:55 AM)the_who Wrote: [ -> ]So thats it? There's nothing anyone here can do?

As it was pointed out to you multiple times, trying to walk someone through the repair of the filesystem at a pre-OS level is difficult. The fact that you don't have beginner level - technical experience or knowledge, or even so much as the OS boot disk for troubleshooting & instillation, makes it extremely difficult & dangerous to walk you through the procedure, so much so that you could wind up doing more damage than is already done.

One thing that I didn't mention before, because we have not gotten this far anyhow, replacing an entire hive of the registry, such as SYSTEM or SOFTWARE, you'll need to reinstall EVERYTHING after the laptop will boot again. So regardless if you even get it to boot, you are still up the river as far as the software goes. A blank backup of the registry hive will be just that.... blank.

You must realize that there are something things that you can't fix on a machine by just instructions alone. You were given the instructions on how to fix the laptop, but you lack items on your side required to complete the repair. Call your IT department. Registry failure happens.

Well thanks for what advice you did give. That is an interesting perspective on what kind of help you can give so thanks for the explanation. You did tell me that I would have to reinstall everything but you really didn't elaborate as to why. You can close the thread if you want because I'm just going to take it to the guy. By now there probably isn't enough time to fix it anyway.

(05-31-2010 01:38 PM)the_who Wrote: [ -> ]You did tell me that I would have to reinstall everything but you really didn't elaborate as to why.

Windows uses the Registry for management of everything in the operating system. Everything from user preferences, to software installed, to hard ware devices. It's the core underlying origination for the operating system. When it gets corrupt, the operating system cannot function. So when you restore any of the registry hives from a blank, or empty hive the new (replaced) hive is empty. Thus Windows no longer has the information that was setup at the installation time of the software. Therefor, the only way to get your software to run again is to reinstall it.

So, how is this going? Any more problems?

(07-04-2010 12:07 AM)townsbg Wrote: [ -> ]So, how is this going? Any more problems?

I had to have the company's on site tech reimage the drive. Thankfully all I lost was a day of productivity which my manager didn't like but he knew that he couldn't change that. This happened again while I was on vacation & the second time I got that hal.dll was missing or corrupt. I want to blame the encryption software but I'm not sure. Does anyone have enough experience with hard drive encryption to offer some incite pertaining my theory? If it helps the software brand is PGP.

This time the first thing the tech tried was to replace the file given in the error with a known good one from a similar computer. After that we got the same blue screen that I did the first time. It is because it happened twice that leads my manager to believe that its the hard drive at fault (which counters what the tech says) and if it happens again he will insist that the drive be replaced. I can't say that I blame him because he can't afford for me to have anymore days where I can't make them money. Recently I thought that it was going to happen again because the computer froze up. Thankfully though I got no blue screen on boot up. I still don't trust this software but I have no choice but to have it installed; it is a company as well as customer requirement. I back my data up weekly though to an external drive just in case.

I've never had so many problems with XP before. The biggest problem that I've ever had with XP previously where driver conflicts between an nVidia graphics card and an ATI tv tuner (yeah big mistake). Really that just lead at the time to the inability to use the tuner and not to instability and certainly not to system corruption. It did test my sanity. Anyway that is a long story but not an ongoing one because I replaced the graphics card with an ati one when the old one died. I don't have cable anymore. Anyway thats TMI.

I'm not sure what to tell you. I also don't like the idea of full drive encryption especially if you can just store or back up the files to an external hard drive. I can understand encrypting the really sensitive ones.

(07-05-2010 12:17 AM)the_who Wrote: [ -> ]I've never had so many problems with XP before.

If the hard drive is faulty, how is that XP's problem? It isn't

uhhh, I suppose not. I'll guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens. Really what I'm wondering is if it could be the encryption software. Do you know?

I doubt that PGP encryption has anything to do with it. I have no faith in SATA drives, I'm constantly getting failed drives in my shop & they are always SATA. Data is data, & the drive is going to store & retrieve it. The fact that software is encrypting the data is besides the point, as all execution in memory.

My opinion on the entire thing is that you are looking too much into it. It isn't even your choice, it's your companies laptop. Sometimes that's the bullet you just gotta bite.

It is a sata drive. The tech has told me that each time it passed his diagnostics. Is there a way for me to test the hard drive myself even though it is encrypted?

Although the computer has locked up several times it didn't corrupt. So overall it is relatively "stable" although I'm not entirely trusting of it. I back up the docs & settings weekly just in case.

Any thoughts as to why this has been happening?