magus: Just saw your post now. I don't have users set up on my computer - but I see wher you are going. One question though, won't reinstalling windows wipe the harddrive and therefore loose all my files?

I tried backing everything up today, but the harddrive that I am booting from is so small that it ran out of space and I couldn't write anything to my CD

Thanks
Zem

Zemlya:

When you reinstall Windows, you WILL NOT loose any of your other files and/or folders. Think of it as installing just another application.

You are only reinstalling the OS, NOT formatting your drive.

You say you don't have any users set up on your computer, but you really do. First off, you have the standard guest accound and the standard administrator account. These are created when windows installs. The guest account is disabled by default and the administrator account is only accessble in Safe Mode.

There is a third user, however, that you created when you set up windows. If you only have one user on your system, Windows bypasses the login screen and takes you right to the desktop. Since you haven't actually had to log into the account, you may have forgotten that you created it.

With that in mind, when you get to the "Add User" screen of windows setup, pick a user name that is really wild like "hairbrush" or something similar. You want to pick a name that you know for sure you didn't use before.

When user "hairbrush" gets to the desktop, look at your users under the control panel. There, you will see the old user you had created. Reboot, log in as the old user and delete user "hairbrush" from the users under the control panel.

REINSTALLING WINDOWS WILL NOT DELETE ANY OF YOUR OLD FILES AND/OR FOLDERS.

Be sure, however, that you tell it to REINSTALL windows into the SAME DIRECTORY as the corrupt version. If you install to a new directory, your system will give you a message as though you have a dual boot system. It will ask you which XP HOME version you wish to load. One, of course, will not run as it still has the lsass.exe problem. The other will run, but you'll loose all of your old settings - background, shortcuts, program shortcuts on the start menu, etc. In addition, you'll have to activate your copy of windows again.

If you happen to dot his, you can easily correct this problem by editing the boot.ini file. In that file, just find the references to the two XP HOME's you have installed. Delete the line that refrences the corrupt version. When you reboot, since only one OS is listed (the working version of XP Home), windows will load without asking you select an OS from the multiboot screen.

If you install into the same directory, you can get back your old user and life will resume for you as if nothing ever happened.

When you tell windows to Install from the DOS screen, make sure you pick the REINSTALL option. Don't let windows format your drive. You'll be OK. You'll see what I'm talking about when you get to that screen.

Keep us posted.

since you dual boot you won't have to use command prompt

the root drive is just the place on your drive where the file directory starts
so it's thought that the OS that is not booting is on the first drive and should be the c:\ drive.

the problem with accessing the folder is you need permission
I think gerryf did a good good explaining that

with a dual boot system or a bartspe disk you can get yourself out of alot of problems without having to reinstall


reinstalling over the top might not fix a registry problem
and you also loose snapshot registry backups
at the very least you'll want to gain access to the
System Volume Information
folder because once you reinstall over the top / reinstall repair option
you'll loose these backups and if it doesn't work then your only other option may be a clean install.

is there an edit button around on this forum ?


edited

at the very least you'll want to gain access to the
System Volume Information
folder and backup some snapshots because once you reinstall over the top / reinstall repair option

To: thegorx

I too have needed an edit button from time to time and NO, I don't think there is one.

My question to you is this. Why would a reinstall not fix a registry problem? I've used this method of recovery 3 times (all successful).

I've tried every other method in the books, and turned up with nothing.

You may know another way, so I'm going to stick around to see what works, but I've tried the stuff you all are talking about. It was a lot of work and got me no where - slowly.

Where is the registry information stored? I understand that if my settings are still intact after a reinstall, then the registry wasn't tampered with, I just never thought of that until you mentioned it just now. I'm thinking the reinstall rewrites portions of the registry...am I right?

Again, I wouldn't worry too much about those snapshots of those restore points. My personal experience with them is that they just plain don't work. I've never corrected any problem via restore points.

In your particular situation, however, the snapshots are no good to you until you bypass the lsass.exe error. If you bypass the error, however, and get your system running again, you can just create a new restore point when you get back to your desktop. Until you bypass the lsass.exe error, those restore points mean jack to you.

PLease See this Link


System error: Lsass.exe
When trying to update a password the return status indicates that the value provided as the current password is not correct.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

I noticed that you all mentioned SAM. I can assure you that this doesn't have anything to do with the problem either.

I have, using the recovery console, backed up the following files:

default
sam
security
software
system

into a temporary directory and copied replacements from the windows/repair directory. This didn't help. Replacing these files this way will help many startup problems, but not ones pertaining the lsass.exe process.

Please keep us posted on your progress.

I don't rely on system restore too heavily either
but it does work when it works
but the main thing is that it backs up the registry data base
and those hive file do become corrupt and they are one of the easiest files to become corrupt

I'm not sure how much reinstalling over the top rewrites the registry
But I'm pretty sure it in no way scans or repairs the registry database
and if the database is corrupt there can still be continuing problems
in one case not like this one, a system was redetecting hardware on every boot and looking in the registry the were over a dozen listings for this one piece of hardware. So no matter what always have registry backups.

I have run into a problem like this as I stated, it been awhile since I searched for an answer an all that I could fine was a clean install was the solution
but going back to my windows 98 experience
the first thing to try is restoring the registry database
and it work in my case and was simple since I was dual booting

also I believe using a bartspe disk will let you open the
System Volume Information
folder on a NTFS drive with no problems as far as permissions

reinstalling might be the answer to this problem but it's not the first thing I'd try and I'd get some of those registry backups place somewhere where the won't be remove by windows setup.

now that I think about it
I haven't looked into it until now
but it might be a good practice to restore the hive file every
once in a while by looking at my hive files created and modified dates
it appears that they are mostly modified not recreated

turning into a fun thread...wish we could all get in a room with this machine and debug this problem.

The one time I tried a windows reinstall to the same directory, this did not work.

At the time, I was in the middle of installing 50 machines for an office, so rather than fart with it, I just wiped and started over...wish I hadn't now.

There are really multiple strategies of dealing with this, but I suspect the thread originator is getting tired of messing around. In addition to all the possibilities, including one where I was going, perhaps the simplest at this point is to

A) make a new installation of windows onto the same disk (say in a c:\winnt directory), get up and running,
B) reinstall his programs,
C) take possession of the previous OS profiles,
d) wipe out the old windows directory and
e) edit the boot.ini file and
f) move on.

btw, I hope you guys stick around...the forum could use some knowledgable PC users to help the newer folks out.

btw2...

Desiredfx solution looks promising....where thegorx thinks it's the system hive, I think it's the SAM hive, MS (and they should know) says why fart around...replace them all

The Good News: I did just that, replaced them all and YAY!!!! I can get it to boot now

I'm still having issues with the System Volume Information folder and access denied, but I see that there is a link from the page Desiredfx put out there to walk me through that too ... so I'll be giving that a try next.

The Bad News: It does appear as though I've lost everything off that hard drive - ah well, small price to pay and luckily almost (with the exception of my husbands stuff) was backed up on the second drive in the machine anyway.

THANK YOU ALL SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH FOR THE HELP!

I will keep you posted on progress.


Gerryf: I really wish you could too

you shouldn't have losed anything
I'm guessing it just the fact that you're using the original registry hives that where created when the system was installed

so keep trying to gain access to the System Volume Information folder

try the

cacls "driveletter:\System Volume Information" /E /G username:F

if you can't gain access the other way

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309531

the current user name is what you need and if it's more than one word you may need to use "user name" quotes I'm not sure

or you could try like I said using a bartspe disk although that might be more complicated but I'm pretty sure it will have access to it by default

if you're looking for files like that where in your my documents
look in Documents and Settings