Solved Registry edit on non-booting hard drive

I have a hard drive that got corrupted when I uninstalled Vista Sp1 (not my fault) and won't boot to Safe Mode or Windows. Ran the repair disk on it and it says it's recovered. However, now I get the "Can't find autochk, skipping autocheck" during the startup and it just reboots. I installed a new hard drive along with Vista up through SP2 and that's working fine.

If I start Vista and plug in the old drive (it's called K:, I can see the C: drive on the K: drive but not my other partitions on the corrupt hard drive (that's the real problem). To get rid of the autocheck problem, one has to edit the registry.

The questions are-which file on the K: drive is the registry and how do you open it without opening the registry on the working operating system? I see a file called reg in the system 32 files but if I right click on it and select open, it doesn't open. I don't have the "open with" option for that file, so I can't use regedit. Any help?

Hi,

I would suggest you try this software & see if you get any information from the disk: -

Free Download Magic Partition Manager freeware: EASEUS Partition Manager, Disk & Partition Copy and Partition Recovery Software.

This sounds like an advertisement rather than a real answer to my questions. If I'm wrong, my apologies.

Apology accepted.

So how do you partition a hard drive that you can't boot? I don't want to lose the files on one of the partititons.

I tried using the recovery disc again last night and it gets as far as asking me which drive I want to boot to. It shows the correct partition sizes but calls them all DisK 0. If I pick any partition, it says that "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation." I don't know how to assign a volume name to each of these partitions.

Since I can access the operating system when I connect this as a secondary drive, I still would like to know how to access the registry.

Hi,

First I would stop trying to alter the dead drive as this will make the information on it irretrievable.

Connect he drive to a working system & use the download partition software to look for lost partitions.

Then, do nothing else, until you have confirmed that the ones it finds are the exact ones you are looking for.

So look but do not alter anything for now.

Report back on what is found. OK?

Thanks for your reply and help.

Which particular download are you talking about?

As I noted, I can connect it to the operating Vista system that I'm working from right now and see the C: partition and the included operating system. It won't show me the other partitions in this manner.

Where do I install the software and does it allow me to specify the non-booting drive? I don't want to screw it up.

The recovery disc gives me the option of formatting one of the partitions but, since each is called Disk 0, I don't want to go that route for fear that it will format the entire drive and I'll end up losing the data I'm trying to retrieve.

Hello,

The drive needs to be reconfigured so the original (Your) partion table is activated again.

So, from the first post use the software to see if the table can be reconstructed & report back on what it finds. Post pictures of screens, if you can. OK?

Free Download Magic Partition Manager freeware: EaseUS Partition Manager, Disk & Partition Copy and Partition Recovery Software.

I think a screen shot is attached. Have to wait until I finish.

It detects and can view the contents of all three partitions. Two are shown as hidden. I could have selected unhide but I wanted you to lead me through it.

By the way, I wanted to scan it with Norton and it says the Master Partition Table is corrupted.

Hi,

If they are the correct sizes for your expected drives, unhide the two hidden partitions.

The only other thing you might need to do is to allocate a drive letter to each partition when you boot & then reboot to test. The fault with the partition table might just be sorted. OK?

Thanks for your help.

Yes, the size of the hidden partitions are exactly what I expect. I had already experimented by using the unhide feature on both of those and it automatically assigned new designations but, I didn't reboot to put the changes into effect. I didn't want to jeopardize recovery by doing something that I didn't understand.

My first priority is to recover personal files off the hidden partitions. Since the partitions were hidden, I couldn't access any files except those on the C: drive.

I'll get back to you.

Phew! I unhid the partitions and rebooted and they were accessible. I copied all the files I wanted to the new hard drive so my first and most important mission is accomplished.

On the other hand, the drive letters assigned are based on the drives recognized by the operating system on my new hard drive. So, I don't really think that would fix the master partition corruption.

I noticed that is an option to repair the mbr in Easeus but I don't know if that's related to the master partition problem.

I would like to restore the drive not only as a backup drive but also as a bootable drive.

What approach do you recommend?

Hi,

When the drive is connected to the computer use the EaseUS software to change the drive letters or use Vista "Disk management" to change them.

In Windows: -

Right mouse on my computer, select Manage. Then select Disk management.

Right mouse on each drive you want to change & change the letter to the ones you need. OK?

I'm going to talk about my non-booting hard drive:

Prior to the attempted uninstall of SP1, I had Vista on both the C: and E: partitions. Now that I unhid the D: and E: partitions, I can boot from the E: partition. It doesn't give me the autocheck error anymore. That copy of Vista hasn't been upgraded to SP1 or SP2. In addition, the partitions are called C:, D:, and E so that's not an issue. They're just moved around when I boot from the E: partition.

It still won't boot to the C: partition. If I use my recovery disk, it goes as far as Copy files but, when it's ready to extract them, it says it can't find Sources\Install.wim because it's not on the disc. So there's still something hanging up the boot and reinstallation. I think that SP1 wasn't completely removed.

So, I could just update the Vista on my E: partition and use it for the boot but it bothers me that there's something wrong on the C: partition so I would like to repair it. Problem is, I don't know how. If it's possible to format the C: partition only, I'm afraid it would mess up the E: boot capability since msconfig.exe startup options I think are tied to files on the c: partition.

Anything in Easeus that might repair this?

By the way, Cyberpowerpc tech support told me that I could access the registry on the C: partition by running cmd, changing the directory to c: and then running regedit. However, regedit still opens the registry on the E:.

Thanks very much for your help

Hi,

OK, a couple of quick question: -

Are you setup to dual boot? What is the difference between C & E operating systems (Are they both Vista)?

Is E the recovery partition?

I am not sure the about advice on the regedit stuff is correct.

So, could you now, please recap exactly what you are trying to achieve from here!

Yes, I did a setup for a dual boot.

The Vista on the C: partition is the primary. I installed it on the E: partition because I got one of those fake anti-virus programs a year or two ago while using the primary C: partition which made it unbootable. Installing Vista on the E: partition allowed me to scan the C: partition for viruses and malware. It worked. I later found that all I had to do to get rid of it was to do a system restore.

As I mentioned earlier, when I uninstalled SP1 from the install on the C: partition, it made the C: unbootable. I could boot from the E: partition but in my efforts to try to restore the C: using Norton System Recovery, I ran checkdisk and didn't let it finish. Then I got the Autocheck problem when I tried to boot to the E: partition. Since the wisdom at Microsoft was to do a registry edit to get rid of the Autocheck problem and I couldn't access the registry, that's what started this thread.

My whole objective now is to fix the Vista on my C: partition so I can boot to it. If I can do that, then I consider the drive to be reliable for future use. Because of my lack of knowledge, I don't know what would happen to my partition information if I do something like format the C: partition because I created the partitions when I first got the computer and, obviously, that was done from the C:. I also don't know if formatting the c: will allow me to reinstall Vista.

Your help has been a godsend.

wither 3 said:

My whole objective now is to fix the Vista on my C: partition so I can boot to it. If I can do that, then I consider the drive to be reliable for future use.

Click to expand...

I don't understand why you want to take the time to fix a corrupt install merely to test the drive when you have a newer working install. A better way to test a hard drive would be to scan it with diagnostic tools designed for it by the drive's manufacturer. If the diagnostic tools say that nothing is wrong then there is probably nothing wrong with it but it is best practice to assume that your hard drive will fail and therefore plan for the worst.

Hi,

Are you sure that the "Infection" only got to one system?

Do you have the recovery disk for this computer to recover to "Day one"? As this would be the quickest & safest way to recover the "C" drive system.

Please advice.

townsbg- I want to restore the hdd to the state it was in before the Microsoft uninstall program screwed it up. I'm plan to use it as a disk for backing up files and, possibly as a backup if the new disk ever has a problem.

Lottiemanson- The malware only affected one partition. It's been fine for I'm guessing two years. The disc I've been using to attempt the reinstall is the OEM recovery disc I received when I bought the computer.

I could take the plunge and just reformat the C: but I thought you might have a little more knowledge of the effects that might have.

Reformatting the drive shouldn't affect the other drive but it will erase all data. If you want to make sure that it is good after that you can use diagnostic software from the manufacturer.