Linux saves the day ... again

David M Williams
Monday, 24 August 2009 12:53

Opinion and Analysis

Once in Linux I had much more power at my command. I copied the user’s documents and data to a USB memory stick. I browsed the C: drive, and I looked up messages online using the Firefox web browser.

I knew, from the time spent battling with Windows, that the problem was a corrupt registry. This meant the files in C:\Windows\System32\Config were damaged.

First I copied these onto the flash stick too, expecting that if one or more files could not copy that this would show a faulty file, and a possibly damaged physical disk. However, the files all copied without incident.

I looked under C:\System Volume Information for registry files but alas, System Restore had been disabled on this particular system.

Not to worry, for good versions were in C:\Windows\System32\Config\RegBack. I’d already backed up the current registry files to the flash disk above so I replaced them with the ones under RegBack.

This time, and delightfully, the laptop rebooted into Windows just as if nothing happened. A few tests confirmed the system was fully operational with all software and policies and options as they should be.

I was mildly surprised; literature indicated the files under RegBack were typically old copies from when the system was first installed unless a backup tool had been used. Nevertheless, all our post-setup installations were present and working.

Given that Windows identified the problem was a registry issue, and that all I had to do was replace the in-use registry with copies from the RegBack folder it is astounding Windows was unable to perform these simple steps in its alleged auto-repair mode.

Nevertheless, with nary a tool but an Ubuntu Linux Live CD the system was repaired and running.

There was no loss of data, there was no time spent re-imaging. The user was happy.

No matter how disposed you are towards Windows, if you don’t have at least one Linux CD in your arsenal you’re hampering yourself. It’s a better Windows recovery tool than Windows itself.