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Using XP System Restore Offline

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MerleOne:
Hi,

I am trying to repair the XP machine of a friend : it boots OK but hangs at the moment where the user selection is supposed to appear.  Same thing in safe mode or when trying to restore the last working config.  I have checked with UBCD4Win that the filesystem is OK and the H/W seems functional.

Looking around, I found there is a Microsoft tool, formerly developed by Sysinternals, called ERD, that makes it possible, using a WIN PE boot CD, to restore previous configs saved with "XP System Restore".  I have an eval copy of version 5.0.  It boots OK, but refuses to go further since it detects XP Pro SP3, which is not supported in this version.  My friend is certain his PC is running XP Home SP3 and not Pro.

I have thus 2 questions :
- Is there a way to "trick" ERD 5.0 to make him see XP Home instead of XP Pro (since it is most probably a XP Home - my friend has the reinstallation CD provided with his Fujitsu Siemens tower, they are indeed XP Home)
- Do you know an equivalent tool, not Microsoft made, which would not have such limitations ?

Thanks !

4wd:
You mention that you can't boot to Safe Mode or Last Good Config but not whether you can boot to CLI or not.

If you can boot to CLI then you can use System Restore as given here.

Bamse:
I ran into ERD here http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/perform-system-restore-rollback-on-non-bootable-xp-computer/ where it also says it works on SP3. How big is the iso? Should be 152.805.376 I hope. There are quite a few not so legal copies available. Difference between home vs. pro seems weird. Can you find anyone with that problem on Google?

Good for corrupted registry but if infection is problem may be better to use a bootable scanner.

MerleOne:
Thanks all for your answers.  CLI is definitely something I must try.  I haven't thought before about it.  Regarding ERD, it's the legitimate one, freshly downloaded from MSFT by one of our sysadmin.

I omitted something : before trying ERD, I started to used UBCD4win and EZPCFix but this somehow corrupted the NTFS filesystem because at reboot, chkdsk was launched and spent quite some time correcting many errors, while before UBCD4win, chkdsk returned no error whatsoever.  Maybe the system has gone corrupt so that ERD cannot recognize it.

I'll try CLI next monday and will let you know.

4wd:
Given the extra info the method I would use to restore the system, (which, personally, I never had any luck with on XP so I removed it from all subsequent installs), would be:

1) Boot from a BartPE/WinPE based CD/drive and copy any important data to another external/internal HDD.
2) Download an XP Home ISO, (supposedly legal if you have a license), and perform an 'Install/Repair in place'.

The XP installer should pick up the existing installation, unless it is severely munged, and give you the option to repair it.

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