win 95b system registry problem

[nadine]

Hi: one of my computer running win 95b .
having a system registry problem .
the error as follow:(on my desktop)
and I cannot access anything on my computer
windows encountered an error when backing up
the system registry .make sure you have enought
space on the drive for three copies of the file
C:\windows\user.Dat
any idea to how can I resolve this problems.thanks
in advance

[BFlurie]

The first question is: Were you running out of HD space on your C drive? If you were, then you have a real problem -- you'd have to do something to make room for the .reg backups using DOS.

Can you get into Safe Mode by pressing F8 when "Starting Windows95" appears after a reboot & choosing Safe Mode from the menu?

If not, you could have a real problem if the reg backups aren't good because that's normally how you recover from a W95 reg failure -- by using the backups.

Look at this MSKB article (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q131/4/31.asp?LN=EN-US&SD=SO&FR=0) to start off, then let us know.

[nadine]

Hi:I can boot normaly to safe mode via F8 ,but the error still the same up there on the desktop ,and I cannot access anything (such as control pannel, my system my program EtC.)
as with respect to my HDD space I still have left 300MB
and the drive is compressed .
also I bought the computer 4 years ago ,but the reason i keep-it
as a backup .thanks alot

[BFlurie]

Try to follow the instructions on the MSKB link I showed (may need to print it out). It has to be done from pure DOS since Windoz running won't let you manipulate the registry in those ways other than exporting. Unfortunately, as the link states, there can be a problem with W95's regedit.exe (that can be solved by using W98's regedit.exe) when you try to import the registry back in. Let us know.

[nadine]

Hi: I tried to follow the instructions from microsoft
to edit the registry ,but I cannot inport or export
in real mode ,always I got the following error:
unable to open registry (1,016)- c:\windows\system.dat/e
any idea ,thanks alot.

[BFlurie]

The only thing left before reinstalling is to try the registry backups. In pure DOS mode, type these lines -- note da0 is da(zero), not da(letter o). May want to print out these lines for reference:

cd\
c:
cd windows
attrib -h -r -s *.dat
attrib -h -r -s *.da0
ren system.dat system.old
ren user.dat user.old
ren system.da0 system.dat
ren user.da0 user.dat
attrib +h +r +s *.dat

Reboot & see what happens. If still the same problem, you'll need to reinstall Windows w/the installation CD booting from a startup floppy w/CDRom support drivers. No need to reformat or anything, just reinstall "overtop".

[nadine]

Hello:thanks for your kind cooperation.
I managed yesterday to fix my win95 b system registry problem without reinstalling
or loosing any file all what I did the following:
1) fire up my pc
2) pressing f8 boot menu
3) command prompt only
4) cd c:\windows
5) c:\windows> attrib -h -r -s system.dat (enter)
6) c:\windows > attrib -h -r -s system.da0 (enter)
7) copy system .da0 system .dat (enter)
8) attrib -h -r - s user.dat (enter)
9) attrib -h -r -s user.da0 (enter)
10) copy user.da0 user.dat
11) C:\windows > Win or exit the computer is up and running
thanks again for this great site and for all peoples around here.

[BFlurie]

Great. What you did was essentially the same as what I posted -- you just overwrote the corrupt .dat files with the (backup) .da0 files.

[struggles]

Nice job BFlurie!:)