First my system parameters, Windows XP professional, using NTFS. Service pack2 installed.
I tried installing office 2000 on this machine, then without rebooting I removed it from add/remove programs. I believe this action messed up registry enough, that next time I restarted my machine, I got the error,
system32\config\software corrupted or something to that effect. It did not
restart and I was not able to login.
I did a bit of research and found about the XP repair options. So I got my originial XP disc and reached upto the repair console. I could not use ASR.
I followed the steps as listed in the microsoft support, however, in my case, I had no
c:\winnt\repair\system,
also the system had error, copying c:\winnt\system32\config\software file to backup.
So I used, c:\winnt\repair\system.bak and tried to restart.
Well this appeared to work, however when it restarted it automatically logged in as Administrator and nothing else worked. The system did not respond to any key input, the mouse didn't work, the system was hung.
I again went into the XP repair console and perhaps made the biggest mistake, that is I copied back the original C:\winnt\system32\config\system, which I had backedup to its original location. After restart I now get messages, lsass -> error while updating password, incorrect password.
When I try to go into the repair console, it now asks for administrator password and neither my original password works , nor the blank.
So I am at a complete loss.
Is there anything I can do, short of sending the disc for data recovery ?
Thanks for all help.