i messed up with regedit and now......?

Question

i uninstalled a program which had been in my comp for like 2 years. stupid as i am i decided to delete all its registries using regedit. There i found many folders which i thought belonged to the softwares i had uninstalled long ago and so i started deleting them and when i closed regedit, i didn't recognise my comp. On right clicking i couldn't see many options. i couldn't open any folder or start any software. so i decided to restart my comp. it now just stops on the welcome screen and freezes. is there any way i can make my comp start without reinstalling windows? please help? also if i have to reintall it, how can i retrieve my data on D and E drive cuz i know that c would be deleted. please help?

Answer 1

if you have an actual windows disc (as opposed to some cheap restore cd) you can do an installation repair.

Just boot to the disc....select install windows.
after it does the disc scan it will detect that you have it installed already.....press "r" for "repair current installation"
It will go through the whole install process but will leave all your installed programs, files, and such in tact. It doesn't need to format or anything if you just use the repair mode. It'll keep your user accounts the same as well.

Keep in mind.....you want to match up the correct build if possible. I.E. If you upgraded to service pack 2 at some point it's easiest to use a windows disc that includes sp2 in it. You won't get any errors with an older version but you would have to reinstall the service pack afterwards if you wanted to keep it up to date.

Answer 2

Whenever using regedit, you should always backup your registry to avoid issues like this. Unfortunately without a backup of your registry the only thing that can be done is a system restore or a wipe and reload of Windows. The data on your D and E drives will still be there untouched. You can also do a reinstall of windows into a different directory and save your data on the C drive as well.

To do a reinstall without deleting your data, insert your Windows CD and reboot. When asked into which directory you want to install Windows into, change the name from C:\Windows to C:\Win then continue the install, you will have a fresh install of Windows and still have all your data but you will need to reinstall all your software.

Answer 3

Try starting your computer in Safe Mode to see what happens. If it wont allow you to do that you'll probably have to reinstall. If you permanently deleted information from drives and you had not backed it up (made copies) then there's no way for you to retrieve what you deleted.

Since this is a complicated issue and you'll need a very reliable responsible answer:

http://discuss.pcmag.com/forums/1016/ShowForum.aspx

When you post a question be sure to include what version of what OS you're using, the brand of PC you're using, etc...

Answer 4

reinstall, just format c and put windows back on d and e drives or partitions should be the same as they were before the registry was messed up.

Answer 5

restore ur system, then get tuneup utilities for registry checks. dont play with registry if you dont know how, and if you want to, make sure you back up the registry.