How can I browse a *copy* of the registry from a full backup of the hard drive? (Win XP).?

Question

My disk fried, but I have a full copy of the disk, including all the registry files, that used to live in C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\* . I need to look up some serial number, but I do not want to mess up my current registry. How can I find it?

Answer 1

I ussually use a registry viewing program on my BartPE disk for that.

Why not try Regviewer 4.2 (free)
http://paullee.ru/regstry site is in russian but from what i can tell it uses a dos type interphase

or access data (there is a demo)
http://www.accessdata.com/products/rv/

or regdatXP(trial)
http://people.freenet.de/h.ulbrich/

i havent tried any of the above so i don't know how good they are or how to use them.