twofo forum

HI guys, I am in a bit of a problem....my Windows is fucked...and it happened coz (i think) i changed something in the registry.

Also Safe mode...restore from previous version...everything results in a BSOD....I am currently using Ubuntu 5.10 - from the CD...thank God for that!

Is there anyway I can access the Windows registry and undo the changes directly from Ubuntu?

I have lost my recovery CD and so thats out of the question. Further my data is waaay to important for me to format.

Please help!!!

Thanks,,,Z

Not that I know off. You'd probably just be better off backing up the files you need then doing a format rather, than fiddling further with the registry (assuming there is even a way)
Borrow somebody's external HDD if you don;t have anything yourself

The problem with that is the partition is NTFS...trying to mount with ntfs-3g...results in "permission denied".

So I cannot even backup my data...and format...any ideas?

Thanks

Also...is there anyway to force Windows to run chkdsk...from within Ubuntu...on the next reboot...i have a feeling that chkdsk might solve it...

Can you not get a friends to download and burn a windows iso for you off DC?
If you install a different version of windows onto the drive (into C:\WINNT for instance) and making sure you choose different login names, it ought not to overwrite any files on the drive already and should give you a working copy of windows. This will enable you to get on to make a backup of files (hopefully anyway). Not sure how well you;d be able to access files in My Documents etc as they might be encrypted.
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ <--- "might" be able to help there.

As for running chkdisk, again you really need access to a Windows CD. If you have that you can boot off the CD and run the recovery console, from which you can run chkdisk

I know all of my solutions need access to a windows CD, but if you've buggered the OS, you really need the original installation disk for something to revert to

thanks buddy....appreciate the help!!

I guess I ll have to leave it for tomoro...and try and get the image tomoro....

thanks once again!

Well back to the reading NTFS from linux, you don't need ntfs-3g to read files, the kernel ntfs module handles reading fine.

As far as I know, there is no way to read or write a windows registry from linux.

There is a program called ntfsfix (part of ntfsprogs) which is supposed to fix basic errors and schedule a file system check when windows boots. You probably need to be root to run this which can be tricky when running from a live cd.

I don't know much about ubuntu, but you could try the knoppix live cd. That's pretty good at auto detecting and mounting your disk partitions. With knoppix, you can press Control+Alt+F1 (or F2,F3 etc.) to switch to a root command prompt.

Ok I did the Ctrl Alt F1 thing in Ubuntu...and I got some sort of a prompt...

I ran NTFSFIX /dev/hda1 - my C: drive,

and it refused to mount...saying permission denied...then it also went onto say that the volume is corrupt

Any ideas?

Thx

Zizzi wrote:I ran NTFSFIX /dev/hda1 - my C: drive

Just checking - you did run the command as root (sudo) didn't you?

Root prompts end with a #, like this:
[root@localhost ~]#

whereas normal users end with $ :
[ejs@localhost ~]$

its was a $ sign....so I guess not root....

can I login in the Live cd as root?

thx

Try doing what Kat said - use sudo

"sudo mount /dev/sda1 /somewhere"

ah its ok....man.it was too hard...just did what the guy said earlier...reinstalled windows..backed up...format...reinstall

cheers tho...appreciate the help!

ubuntu lets u run sudo without a password usually. I had to change mine to actually put a password for the root account, so u should be able to just use sudo from the live CD. I haven't tested that myself. The Ubuntu live CD is just as good as the Knoppix live CD in reading NTFS in my experience and both do it automatically for me. I think it even mounted everything automatically for me (not entirely sure now that I think about it).

Gentoo liveCD is pretty good too