Restart in Safe Mode and a Recent Snapshot Backup
Restart the computer in Safe Mode by pressing F8 during the initial bootup and select Safe Mode. Once in Safe Mode, make sure the files and folders are visible so you can access them. Follow these instructions to achieve this.
- Open My Computer
- Click the Tools menu and then click Folder Options.
- Click the View tab.
- Under Hidden files and folders, click to select Show hidden files and folders, and then click to clear the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) check box.
- Click Yes when the dialog box that confirms that you want to display these files appears.
In My Computer, double-click the drive where you installed Windows XP (usually drive C) to view a list of folders. Then double-click "System Volume Information" folder. This folder contains the system restore points stored on your computer. The folders are similar
_restore (EE42BEB8-700A-495F-8004-53D26C2E12C5)
You may receive an Access Denied error message when trying to access the System Volume Information folder.
C: \ System Volume Information is not available. Access is denied.
You received this error message because you are logged into folder that does not have permissions set on the folder. To correct this, please follow the instructions in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 309531 to access and continue.
Once you have access to snapshots, use the following instructions to copy one of the latest snapshots for Windows \ TMP folder, so you have access to it.
- The System Volume Information folder, click View, then click Details to display the date of each snapshot folder.
- Open a folder that was created at the current time, but rather before the problem began.
- Open Snapshot subfolder
- Check the following files and copy and paste them into C: \ Windows \ TMP folder
- _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT
- _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY
- _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
- _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM
- _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM
- Rename the files that you just copied into the C: \ Windows \ TMP folder.
- Rename _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT to DEFAULT
- Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY for security
- Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE software
- Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM for system
- Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM to SAM
- When your done rename files, restart your computer again with the Recovery Console
Bookmarks