From: "Gary Britt" 

Can you access the drive and copy the most recent backup of the registry
hive back onto the disk.  The files in \winnt\system32\config directory
named software, default, sam, system, hardware, and system.alt combined
with ntuser.dat and usrclass.dat make your registry.  ntuser.dat is found
in the users directory (i.e., \documents and settings\administrator for the
administrator and Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local
Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows for the usrclass.dat file used
by the administrator).

If your hard drive is going bad, it might be better not to copy over the
top of the files on the hard drive.  I would rename the
\winnt\system32\config directory to something else and then create a new
config directory to put the registry files into.  Hopefully the restored
files will hit good sectors.

Then reboot and pray.

Gary

"Tim Boyer"  wrote in message
news:aabd71hmkt01mbbh1up9bfedcntgoillaa{at}4ax.com...
> Dang.  I thought I posted this message already from work, where, of
> course, all of the information is.  So this is from memory.
>
> I'm running 2000 Pro, and just got a BSOD this morning.  Something
> about registry error, and \system32\SOFTWARE being invalid.  (Yeah, I
> know, nice and vague.  But I really _did_ write it down...)
>
> Anyway, can't boot to safe mode, Windows Repair was as effective as
> ever (can't find a Windows partition).  Anyone got a favorite
> commercial repair tool?
>
>
> --
> Tim Boyer
> tim{at}denmantire.com

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