I ran the Issues operation, rebooted and now I'm stuck. 3 year old Dell machine, was Win Me, bought and installed XP W/SP2 last year.
Ran Issues with no other changes to system, upon reboot I got-

"Win did not start properly----

Boot in safe mode
Boot in safe mode with CD

Last known good config" etc-"

Every option brings me back to this same screen.

If I hit F12 at one point, I can boot from the origional XP cd and get to repair console, I can even navigate the hard drive and see the cc_200~1.reg file but I don't know how to use it to undo what was done. Can anyone please advise what I could try next. Is bootfix.exe an option I could use?
Trying to save my skin here, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Wade

Once you are running the Recovery Console, you can get help on the available commands by typing help at the command prompt.

First, thanks for the reply.

However, I have no idea if I can copy or merge the backup copy of the reg to some location that will allow it to boot properly. The cc****.reg file seemed as if it would do this on it's own when under the running windows environment. Since ccleaner took away my ability to get there, the big question is how to restore it with out windows running. Anyone know of any third party software that self boots and will help diagnose what is wrong.
The only sure way out of this I know of is to go buy another hard drive reinstall XP and, add in the origional drive to copy across favorites, emails address books etc.

Thanks, Wade

If I were you I wouldn't take that route. Wait until an expert helps you.

Have you done any investigating at http://support.microsoft.com

I personally am not familiar with your problem, but I would encourage you to be patient.

Side Note: Two hard drives is always a good idea (quote from loikike).
Good Luck!

A cheaper alternative would be to find a bootable floppy (Win98, ME, or XP startup disk) and have your computer boot from that. Booting from a floppy totally bypasses your hard drive, so you don't even have to worry about whatever errors your HD may have on it.

After booting from the floppy, you will be presented with a command prompt (A:\). Put your XP disk into the CD drive and type in "D:" (without quotes), or whatever your disk drive's letter happens to be. Then type in "setup" (no quotes), and go through the installer. The disk should recognize that you currently have XP on the hard drive, and it should offer you the option to either repair or upgrade; choose this option, as opposed to doing a clean install. It will reinstall Windows like normal, but your files and settings will stay intact.

Hope this helps!

You can download the floppy setupdisks from the MS website. Requires 6 floppys total. I made mine a month ago, and forgot.

Requires 6 floppies?! We must not be thinking of the same thing. I'm talking about a Windows Startup Disk. Everything is contained on one disk, with a bit of room to spare. All the disk really contains is CD-ROM drivers and Command Prompt, as well as a few little apps like FDISK, FORMAT, and SCANDISK/CHKDSK. It is one of the best and oldest utilities I can think of for a dead computer. BartPE is supposed to be really useful to, but I've never tested it out.

We are talking about differnet things. But my XP setup floppies gave me the option to repair or upgrade. So would it accomplish the same thing?

I'll come back tomorrow. I'm too tired, and can't think.

Sorry for any confusion!
k

Not sure. Obviously you can't fit the WinXP installer on 6 floppies. 6 floppies = 8.64 MB; 1 CD = 700 MB. So I can't really say what those disks are. What I was referring to was the Win98 startup disk, which I have used dozens of times.

I made an XP startup floppy on a computer with XP Home SP1, and when you ran it, it said that it was the Windows Millenium startup floppy, meaning they didn't update it since WinME. But the ME startup disk is set up somewhat similar to the Win98 one. Although it seems to have less capabilites?! But it still gives you Command Prompt, which is what you need.

Maybe what you got on the website was a major overhaul? But still... 6 floppies... yeesh, sounds like more of a pain in the ass than anything!

However you get it fixed, once you've got it running again install ERUNT: http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

Enable the AUTOBACK.EXE tool, which will keep daily backups for 30 days. Have the backups made in the default location, a subfolder in the Windows folder which you can access from the recovery console. And print out the section of the documentation that tells how to restore the registry from this backup when Windows won't boot.

Then you'll have no problem fixing it if this ever happens again. The instruction for ERUNT seem pretty complicated, but it's really not that hard. Just ignore all the optional stuff and stick to the defaults, that's all you need.

If you do have trouble figuring out AUTOBACK.EXE, it's quite simple to make backups manually, but you have to remember to do it.

Good People:

Thank you all for your remarks and thoughts, I can provide a bit more info:

The machine was born as windows Me and I upgraded to XP about a year ago. XP was also carrying a lot of the original garbage that was under Me. About two weeks ago I ran cleaner with no problems.

The machine was very slow and sluggish but very stable. Last weekend I ran Issues, (making sure not to let it process file associations, something I highly reccomend to everyone running cleaner not to do, it has killed working file associations on every machine I've run it on).


If I try to boot from the HD it brings up the windows loading screen with the chasing light bar, it then flashes for about .5 seconds an error screen that looks similar to the one you get when you cut power without shutting down windows. I've tried every trick to hold it or print it with no luck. It then goes to the screen with

"boot in safe mode"
"boot in safe with network"
"boot in safe mode with driver selection" I forget the wording, the one that allows you to approve each driver being loaded, which does not work.

"last known good configuration"

"boot normally"

Each one does exactlly the same thing, the windows loading screen, then a blank screen, then I believe the CMOS puts up in the top right F2 for setup, F12 to choose a boot device.

If I boot from XP cd and I choose the repair console, aka the dos prompt, I do see a more advancd set of dos tools, help, chkdsk, fixboot, fdisk, etc-. I can also navigate the the hard drive and see all the files.

If I chose to install XP from the same XP disk (hoping it will leave the files like favorites, WAB and etc alone, a process I have done in the past) it claims that the drive is not formatted, "would I like to format it first"

If I put and good HD in the machine as the master and set the origional drive as a slave on the same IDE cable, boot it to XP, it again claims the drive is not formatted.

Ok, thanks again, got to get to work and look busy, may think of something more on the way.
Wade

The saga continues!!

I found today that if I boot with the origional Win Me CD, I can get to DOS prompt. It is here only that I can see the files on the origional hard drive. I believe it is FAT 32 which XP totally ignores when looking from another frive. Even though XP was using the same drive when it went down. Perhaps this is the key, ccleaner did something in error because this was an Me with XP installed overtop of it. I experimented with copying files to floppy, I don't think so!!
chkdsk from the Me boot reports a problem with a cluster in the FAT and will not run or continue.

Ok, the first part doesn't sound too promising. Whenever Windows claims a drive is not formated, that means that some part of the file system is corrupt, and Windows will only be able to use the drive once it has been formatted, which of course means bye bye data! I've had this happen to many a floppy disk (WinXP is notorious for eating floppies). So, there is a possibility that you may have to format; no fun!

But, since you mentioned that you can access files using the ME disk by putting your computer in Command Prompt. Is there any possibility that you can boot into Command Prompt with the ME disk, and then type in "win" (no quotes)? This is the command to start Windows, and maybe it will work doing it this way. Anyway, just a suggestion, but I doubt it will work.

If that doesn't work, I would suggest using your second HD and use Command Prompt to send all of your important folders to it, and then do a fresh install of WinXP.

Ahh, now it becomes clear. Your OS is haunted by the evil Ghost of WinME. I think lokoike's last suggestion sounds about right. Rescue what data you can, then reformat that disc. Then get an excorcist to sprinkle Holy Water on the computer.

I tried the win bit and it said no. I've already gone out and bought another drive and put XP on it. However, copying everything with the Me dos is not going well. I am only interested in a few directories. Im going to try xxcopy next, it looks like i'm going to loose the long file names in the process. Anyone know of any good hard disk recovery utils that will run under Xp and recover these files that only the dos on Me can see.

Thanks, Wade