Windows® 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7/8 does not boot regardless of try Safe Mode and Last Known Good Configuration

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If it is not possible to boot in safe mode and last known good configuration is damaged then you can restore the system files from a full registry backup created before Registry Healer registry scan.

In this case you need either another copy of Windows installed or Recovery Console installed.
Read this topic on how to install Recovery Console and how to use it.

There may be several variants to boot into another copy of Windows (at least Windows XP is required):

·	a second operating system installed on that machine;

·	or install a new OS into another folder (not C:\Windows originally) or another partition;

·	or connect hard drive to a machine with Windows installed;

·	or make a boot CD or flash drive with Windows.

Windows® 2000/2003
Boot into your parallel installed system and launch the Backup utility from the Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools menu. Click on the Restore Wizard button and select the backup file created by Registry Healer. You may be asked for original container of backed up files - select your first Windows folder.

Windows® 2000/2003/XP/Vista/7/8
If you run registry backup as Registry Healer suggested before the scan then you have most recent registry copies in the System Restore backup folder.

The instructions below will show you how you can replace registry files with backup copies.

Boot into your parallel system, open in explorer your old Windows drive and find the folder System Volume Information. To see this folder you need to make it visible:
on the Tools menu, click Folder options, click the View tab, under Hidden files and folders, click to select Show hidden files and folders, and then click to clear the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) check box.
The System Volume Information folder contains one or more folders such as "_restore{87BD3667-3246-476B-923F-F86E30B3E7F8}". Open a most recent folder but not a folder where time stamp is the same as the current time. Then open a recent restore point folder like "RPx" and then Snapshot folder. From the Snapshot folder, copy the following files to the \Windows\system32\config folder on your problem Windows drive:
_REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM
Rename these files to DEFAULT, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, SYSTEM and SAM. But before this you should rename all existent files in \Windows\system32\config to *.bak - that will be backups in case something will go wrong.
Reboot in your problem Windows system and see if it works OK. If no, you can try to copy other registry files from another Resotre Point snapshot folder.

If you have no backup files created before the problem then you can restore your system to the state that was just after installing Windows. Then you will probably need to re-install some programs again.

Boot into your parallel installed system or Recovery Console, open in your problem Windows folder and find the folder:
"C:\WINDOWS\Repair" for Windows® 2000/2003/XP or
"C:\WINDOWS\System32\config\RegBack" for Windows® Vista/Seven.

This folder contains registry backup files created at the time of system installation ("C:\WINDOWS\Repair") or files created on previous successful system start ("C:\WINDOWS\System32\config\RegBack").
Folder "C:\WINDOWS\Repair" may also contain the "RegBack" subfolder with backup files created by Backup utility.

If you boot into another Windows copy then you can use explorer to make file operations.
Please select View -> Details from the explorer window to see file creation dates. Find the most recent file with the name "system" from these two folders ("Repair" and "RegBack") and copy it to the "system32\config" directory ("C:\WINDOWS\system32\config"). If this folder already contains "system" file then rename the previous file to "system.bak" before.

If you are under Recovery Console type these commands:
cd c:\windows\system32\config
ren system system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\regback\system c:\windows\system32\config\system

All of the mentioned above folders (Repair, RegBack, config) may contain other registry files: "default", "sam", "security", "software", "system". Try to restore first the "system" file and test loading the system. Only if this didn't help then try to restore other registry files one-by-one with testing between restoring.

Remarks:
"system" file is the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System" registry hive, "default" is the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\.Default" hive, "sam" is the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM" hive and "security" is the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY" hive. Both last mentioned files contain system security records. Don't modify these files if you don't know what you're doing exactly.
File "software" is the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software" hive. It contains registry keys for installed software. If you replace this file with one very old then you probably will have to re-install the most of your programs.

If any of this doesn't help you then your problem was coming not from registry but from damaged system files. You may need to re-install your system to restore system files.


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