I run a dual boot on my work laptop because there are some work related apps that do not run so well
on my ubuntu partition. Anyhow I ran into the dreaded
Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
error message. I tried to follow the solution that Microsoft has available on their tech support site, but
was not able to get to the recovery console, not even through the boot cd!!
The steps below are how I fixed the problem!
- Install NTFS-3G
This package allows you to perform I/O on an NTFS filesystem.- Install NTFSProgs
This package contains some useful admin tools to use on NTFS filesystems- Mount NTFS filesystem
You will need to mount your Windows partition to backup your corrupted registry files. To do this run the following commands
sudo mkdir /media/windows
sudo ntfs-3g -o rw /dev/<device-name> /media/windows
if you get a message regarding Windows not being shutdown properly, then run the following command to force the mountsudo ntfs-3g -o force,rw /dev/<device-name> /media/windows
Both of the above commands will mount the device as read-write.
- Replace these files
You might want to back up the files in /media/windows/WINDOWS/system32/config/ before replacing them just in case this is not a registry problemNow copy the following files from the file /media/windows/System Volume Information/_restore{xxx}/RPxxx/snapeshot/ dir:
to the /media/windows/WINDOWS/system32/config/ dir and name them as follows:
_REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM
_REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT => default
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY => security
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE => software
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM => system
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM => sam- Schedule a consistency check
Run this command to schedule a NTFS consistency check for the first boot into Windows
sudo ntfsfix /dev/<device-name>- Reboot into Windows twice
The first reboot you should get a blue screen telling you that you should run a filesystem consistency check. Let the check run and then the second reboot should bring you back into a bootable Windows
Hope this helps!!
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