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Help! Has this laptop had it?


Cagey
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That should be fixable, I've faced that BSOD numerous times and never had to reinstall the OS.

Try this:

1. Boot your system with the Windows XP/2000 Install CD, let the system start the Setup. Once in the Setup, choose to run the Recovery Console.

First, we will recover the Software Hive.

Now type the following commands pressing Enter after each line.

md c:\windows\tmp

copy C:\windows\system32\config\software C:\windows\tmp\software.bak

delete C:\windows\system32\config\software

copy C:\windows\repair\software C:\windows\system32\config\software

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I think if you boot up using your XP CD, you can go into the command mode window and IF you know what your are doing, recreate the HIVE file???

However, the Command Console is just a black screen with a prompt!

Otherwise, let the XP CD go through and when it registers the existing XP installation, get it to repair it. It will go through and keep all the information and programs, and then ask for the code and you need to register your XP again. Probably on the phone.

I think!!!

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Not necessarily.

There are two options I can think of.

1 - You can access the recovery console without the CD but only if the recovery console was specifically installed. If it was you'd get the option as the computer boots. For future reference, the instructions to install it can be found here.

2 - Boot from a Linux live CD and do the file copying and renaming from there. Something like Knoppix would do the trick. You would have to mount the Windows volume as read/write (if it is NTFS then it will be read only be default) which can be done by following the instructions here.

Once you've got the NTFS partition writeable you need to open a terminal (like a command prompt in Windows) and find your Windows partition. Issue the command 'df' and you should see a load of lines. You're looking for the 'Mounted on' line (also called mount point) for the Windows volume, it should be obvious which volume it is. Assuming the mount point is /dev/hda1 then the commands I posted earlier would change to:

cp /mnt/hda1/windows/system32/config/software /mnt/hda1/windows/tmp/software.bak

rm /mnt1/windows/system32/config/software

cp /mnt/hda1/windows/repair/software /mnt/hda1/windows/system32/config/software

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