Re: virus (?) has corrupted admin PW & system registry

From: Bruce Chambers (bchambers_at_nospamcableone.net)
Date: 12/28/03 

Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 10:46:09 -0700

Greetings --

    I can verify from personal experience that this method works:

How to Recover from a Corrupted Registry that Prevents Windows XP from
Starting
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545

    To investigate the root cause(s) of the problem:

How to Troubleshoot Registry Corruption Issues
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;822705

Bruce Chambers 

--
Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
You can have peace.  Or you can have freedom.  Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
"RFirst" <r1st@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:02b401c3cd16$cff60f90$a601280a@phx.gbl...
> My wife was using my laptop to surf the web (my first
> problem), and she later told me "oh something's wrong
> with the computer, I don't know what I did..."
>
> When I tried to start it up, the system got just past the
> XP Home splash screen and up popped the strange error
> message: "Unable to start: system is unable to start
> because the following file is missing or corrupted:
> c:\windows\system32\config\system" -- and here it stayed
> until I did a hard reboot.
>
> So, I grabbed my trusty XP boot floppy, booted to the A:
> drive, then checked out the system32\config directory.
> The system file was not there.  So I copied the one from
> windows\repair to windows\system32\config, and tried to
> reboot.  Again, same error message.  When I again booted
> from the XP boot floppy, the entire windows\system32
> \config directory was gone... in it's place was a single
> file called config (!)
>
> Now totally befuddled, I made a temp directory in
> windows\system32 and copied this new config file into it,
> then deleted the windows\system32\config file.  I then
> made a new directory called config in the
> windows\system32 directory, and in it copied all the
> necessary files from the windows\repair directory (sam,
> software, security, default, system).
>
> When I removed the floppy and rebooted, I got another
> error message at about the same point as the other
> one: "lsass.exe -- System Error: when trying to update a
> password, the return status indicates the value provided
> as the current password is not correct."  The system then
> resets itself, and this loop continues indefinitely.
>
> I then tried using my XP install CD to repair the system
> using the Recovery Console, but it will not accept the
> Admin account password that I had previously set.  I
> subsequently tried using a utility called chntpw to reset
> all the user account passwords, but still got the same
> error message upon subsequent reboots.
>
> So, can anyone tell me how to completely reset the admin
> password by editing the registry?  Keep in mind that I
> can only boot the machine to command line using my XP
> boot floppy or the chntpw bootable cd...  Or has anyone
> heard of a virus that causes such behavior (could not
> find anything on Network Assoc. or McAfee websites)?
>
> Any and all help is most appreciated.
>
> Richard
>

Relevant Pages

  • Re: System wont boot - missing C:WindowsSystem32System ?
    ... How have you recovered when this error message appears? ... How to Recover from a Corrupted Registry that Prevents Windows XP from Starting: ... How to Troubleshoot Registry Corruption Issues ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: RWW: version=1 msgtype=status status=-3 message=Password Inco
    ... As per your request I have attached a screen capture of the error message. ... Using CEICW I tried changing the domain name for security certificate generation to just the external IP address. ... Remove registry keys. ... please capture a screen shot of the error so ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • RE: Error message when logging off Windows XP
    ... Mir meant you need to extend the registry to get to the Desktop and click on ... Run disk clean up and check disk on start up. ... Look in the right Pane/window for error message with red or Yellow ... pane, but couldn't find the "AutoEnd Tasks" value to double click. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Help to fix error message accessing Help Center
    ... I don't have either of those registry locations in my registry: ... William Crawford ... MS-MVP Windows Shell/User ... I still get that same error message. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • RE: windows cannnot find the rundll32.exe
    ... Prepare System Restore" error messages in Windows XP ... Important This article contains information about modifying the registry. ... you may receive the following error message: ... the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.printing)