As it gets warmer out the days just seem to fly by. I have been incredibly busy this summer with extra tasks at work and the web business getting busier. I find myself in front of a computer for 20 hours a day sometimes. I have started on some new ventures that will later be announced, hopefully these will bring in some cash a bit faster than the rest.

Other than driving myself nuts lately, I actually have accomplished a few personal things that needed to be take care of around the house. Jamie painted more in the attic (yes thats is still going on, since March), I finished up the electric, patched the new wallboard area, mounted hooks, took down shelves, removed the spoiler from my car which was broken and falling apart.
You can view the past articles here:
2008/03/23/a-little-housework-remodling-the-attic
2008/03/24/continued-house-work-in-the-attic
2008/04/14/progress-on-the-attic-project

On the brighter side, we still aren’t smoking, been since May 12th, so thats like almost 2 month cold turkey for both of us. Luckily we did, only way we can afford gas now! Check it out: 2008/05/12/no-more-smoking

One more thing before I go. I have just have to get this out and rant a bit here. We are saving to go away on vacation in about 2 1/2 weeks (can’t wait). Saturday I brought Jamie’s car to get inspected since it expired come today (Yeah I know way to wait for the last minute). I figured okay it’s just $21 and that’s nothing. ERRR WRONG. With my luck the tires were worn on the inside tread where I couldn’t see it so I had to get new ones, and then an alignment because that is what caused the issue. So my $21 day went to $600. Needless to say, that’s less money for vacation now. FUUUUUN. This kind of stuff always happens.

Problem:
You turn off your computer one day and then go to restart to find an error message that says:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt
C:\windows\system32\config\system

You can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup using the original setup CD-Rom. Select “r” at the first screen to start repair. Do NOT use an OEM “Recovery Disc”. Only a valid Windows XP media will work or a disc from the OEM that says “Operating System” may sometimes work depending on how the manufacturer labeled the CD.

Solutions:
Since this is a re-write of the original article I figured I’d go about this differently. Please read through the entire article before trying any of the solutions/options listed below. Also, these options are in no specific order EXCEPT for Option 1. If you feel up to using any of the options to repair this error I implore you to please go through Option 1 first. Other than that, the other options you can go through at your discretion.

Since some of the information in here, if used incorrectly, could case permanent damage to your system, be aware that neither I, nor the websites, their owners, moderators, members, or hosting providers can be held liable for any damage done to your system while using the information provided. This material is here for informational purposes. Use this document and all methods here at your own risk!

Recovery Console
The Windows XP Recovery Console.
The Recovery Console is a command line console (you know, MS-DOS like window) that allows you some access to your computer (basically, your crashed computer…sorta like Windows 98 boot to command prompt only). It’s not full of features but when you’re in a jam it does a great job. It’s not necessary to pre-install the Recovery Console but it does help.

To enter into the Recovery Console you have two options:
1.) Reboot the computer and before the Windows Logo screen appears tap F8. If you’re lucky, you’ll have the option to boot into Recovery Console.
2.) If you’re not lucky enough to have the option to boot into Recovery Console via step one, find your Windows XP CD and boot from it. Once it loads the files it’ll ask what you want to do. You’re going to select the “R” option to repair the pc via Recovery Console.

Once you get into the Recovery Console it’ll ask which Windows install you want to use. If you’re a regular computer user there should only be 1 listed (Usually listed as 1. C:\windows ) if you’re a more “advanced” user there might be more listed. It is assumed you should then know which one to boot into if you know how to setup a multi-boot system.

After selecting the Windows installation you would like to boot by pressing the respective number you will be asked for the Administrator’s password. It’s time to enter it.
Please note:
There is a built-in “Administrator” account when you install Windows 2000 or Windows XP. When entering the recovery console that is the password the recovery console is asking for. It is not asking for the account you created during install or the one that you generally login to. Unless, of course, you’re logging into the built-in administrator’s account which is not a good idea. If the password was/is blank then you shouldn’t get a prompt asking for a password. It’ll just load into a C:\> prompt. However, if it asks for a password and you don’t remember setting one then there is a known issue with OEM versions of Windows XP and Sysprep (don’t worry about sysprep, for another time) with administrator’s passwords. If that’s the case, then just visit this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308402/en-us website to download and use updated Windows XP Setup Floppies for your version of Windows XP. If by chance you have forgotten the password, I’m sorry, we can’t help you recover it. You can, however, read option 3 or 4 for a way to repair your computer.

Option 1

Firstly, it is in my belief that since you’re having issues loading a file (the windows registry is a database of files, so yes, it’s a file issue) that you could also be having an issue with your hard drive. I also believe that since that that your drive could be going bad it is best to determine if that is the case or not first. The reason behind that is because the more you read/write from the bad drive, the more of a possibility you have of losing important information by causing more irreversible damage to the drive by reading and writing to/from the drive.

What I recommend to do first is to read an article by steamwiz on how to backup your files from an unbootable computer. That article is located at http://www.help2go.com/Tutorials/Computer_Basics/How_to_recover_files_from_an_unbootable%10dead_computer.html. Tip, in the article, steamwiz mentions a linux live cd named Knoppix. If you follow the article and download Knoppix please make sure to download knoppix version 5.0 or higher, it may help you later in this tutorial. After backing up your files, find out your hard drive manufacturer by opening the side of the case. All you have to do is look at the drive label and find out who makes it. More often than not you will not have to unplug anything to view the label of your drive so don’t worry about that. Once you figure out who the manufacturer of your drive is go here to learn about their drive diagnostic utilities: http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

Note:

I urge you to read all documentation supplied with your hard drive manufacturer’s drive diagnostics. The reason, if you go through the menus and pick the wrong option you can inadvertently erase the contents of your entire drive. I’m not trying to scare you from doing a drive diagnostic, just making sure you are warned about not reading the documentation.

If your drive came back OK after running the drive diagnostic utilities then continue. If your drive came back bad or you encountered an error during the diagnostics please call a tech support company in your area or post to our forums. You should already have made a backup using Knoppix and steamwiz’s tutorial above.

Option 2
Please see the section “Recovery Console” to enter the Windows XP recovery console.

1.) At the recovery console type chkdsk /p (note the space between the “k” and “/p”) and hit enter. After it completes, restart the computer. This could have fixed your problem but if not, then proceed to Option 3.

Option 3
This step is rather detailed and will only work if you have System Restore turned on. You will need to go back into the Recovery Console (following the steps above of course). Once you’re logged into the proper Windows installation we need to run some commands.
Here are some notes before we continue. What you are about to do is basically a minor System Restore via the Recovery Console. I say minor because you’re only going to copy part of the registry, not the whole thing. Since you are copying over a registry backup to be used you may loose some program(s) or their settings, it all depends on when the last Restore Point for System Restore was created. If some programs don’t work it’s really as simple as reinstalling them.

The text in red will be what you type and the black text will what the system outputs or what is put there by the system. READY, SET, GO.

C:\Windows>CD C:\system~1\_resto~1
C:\system~1\_resto~1\>dir

After you enter the DIR command and hit enter you will get a list of folders like such rp1, rp2, rp3, rp4, etc. etc. The “rp” part of the folder name denoting it’s a Restore Point

What you’ll want to do is find the 2nd highest numbered folder in that list. So, for instance, if it listed rp1 thru rp24 you’ll want the rp23 folder. I’ll use rp23 for the rest of this little fix just to keep things simple but substitute rp23 for whatever folder is the 2nd highest in the list on your pc.

Now, we have more commands..

C:\system~1\_resto~1>cd rp23

C:\system~1\_resto~1\rp23>cd snapshot

C:\system~1\_resto~1\rp23\snapshot>copy _registry_machine_system c:\windows\system32\config\system

Overwrite system [y,n]: y

1 file copied

C:\system~1\_resto~1\rp23\snapshot>exit (before typing exit, please remove your Windows XP CD from the CD Drive)
After typing “exit” and pressing “enter” on the keyboard your computer will restart, hopefully into a working machine. If by some chance this did not fix your issue you can either go through this option again and try a different restore point or continue with the other options.
Update: According to some users/readers of this article there have been instances of following this option and it not working and when they go back into the Recovery Console to try a different restore point they are asked for a password and when they enter the password it is incorrect or the recovery console doesn’t let them have access. If this happens to you please follow either option 3 or 4 at your discretion. Either of those should fix this issue. Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer as to why suddenly the Recovery Console either asks for a password when it didn’t before or it doesn’t recognize the password you used the first time. I can assure you that I am looking into this and will give you the answer as soon as I do. The only thing I can assume is that it has to do with the issue discussed in the “Recovery Console” section when using OEM or Sysprep imaged machines.

Option 4
I’ve tried writing this option before but it seemed as though this option was turning into another article inside of an article discussing how to add your dead hard drive as a secondary drive to a working computer so I thought of just writing it assuming you know how to do that. If you don’t, please post on the forums or just skip to Option 4. On with the article.
This option works if you have a 2^nd working computer running Windows 2000, XP, or 2003 and also if you have system restore enabled on the dead computer. If you are using XP Home, you will have to start in safe-mode to see the “Security” tab in the folder properties that is mentioned later in this option.
What you need to do is remove the hard drive from the dead computer and put it as a secondary/slave drive into the 2^nd working computer. Once you have the dead hard drive installed in the working computer please boot the working computer. Once Windows is finished loading you will have to show all hidden files/folders and all hidden operating system files. You can do this by going into “My Computer” and then at the top select “tools” then “folder options”. Once the “folder options” dialog opens click the “view” tab and under “Hidden Files and Folders” section put the bullet (circle thing) next to “show hidden files and folders”. Also, in that same window UNCheck “hide extensions for known file types” AND “hide protected operating system files (recommended)”. Once you change those options click the “apply” and then the “ok” buttons.
You should now be back at the “My Computer” window. There, you should also see another hard drive listed. Open that drive. Once you open that hard drive you will see a slightly transparent folder named “System Volume Information”. Try and open it. If you get an error saying “access is denied” right click the folder and select “properties”. When the new dialog window opens click the “security” tab and then click the “add” button. When you click the “add” button a new window will open entitled “select users or groups”. In the section named “Enter the object names to select (example):” enter the word “Administrators” (no quotes, and note that it’s plural). Press the “check names” button and then “Ok” button. After you do that you will be taken back to the security tab where the “Administrators” group will be listed. Click that once to highlight it and then you’ll see the section in that window that says “Permissions for Administrators:” In the “allow” column check “Full Control” and note everything else will have a check mark automatically added in the “allow” column. Click “apply” then “ok”.
You should now be back in the newly added hard drive and looking at the “system volume information” folder. You can now enter that folder. Once you open that folder you will be faced with 2 files and one folder. The folder will be named “_restore{xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx}” where xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is a bunch of random numbers and letters separated by hyphens “-”. Open that folder and you will now see all the rpXX folders, where XX is the number of restore points you have. Following the same examples from Option 2 you want to pick the 2^nd highest numerical folder in the list and open it. For example, if I had folders rp01 through rp27 listed I would want to open rp26. After opening that folder you will see 14 files and 1 folder. We are not worried about the folder named “repository”. We are worried about the files which are your backed up registry files from system restore. For right now, minimize this window.

We want to open a NEW “My Computer” window and go into that same drive. There we will go to \windows\system32\config\ . Example: If the dead hard drive that I added to my working computer was given a drive letter of “G” i would go into G:\windows\system32\config\. I would then RENAME (by right clicking the file and selecting rename) the SYSTEM file to SYSTEM.OLD (noting the period “.”). Now minimize this window.

After renaming the SYSTEM file to SYSTEM.OLD, go to the rpXX folder that you minimized and RIGHT click __registry_machine_system and select “copy”. Now maximize the \windows\system32\config\ folder that you minimized above and right click a blank spot and select “paste” (or “edit” from the menu above and select “paste”). After you select “paste” you’ll see the __registry_machine_system file in the \windows\system32\config\ folder. Now right click that file and select “RENAME” and rename it to “SYSTEM” (no quotes, upper or lower case doesn’t matter).

Before continuing let’s make sure we got this right. You are renaming the file \windows\system32\config\SYSTEM of the dead drive to SYSTEM.OLD. Then, you are copying the file __registry_machine_system from the \system volume information\_restore{xxxxxxxxx-xxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}\RPXX\snapshot folder to \windows\system32\config folder of the dead drive and pasting it to the \windows\system32\config folder of the dead drive and renaming it to SYSTEM.

If that is correct, turn OFF the computer and unplug it from the wall outlet. Remove the dead drive and put it back in your “dead” computer remembering to change your jumper settings if you reconfigured them before putting them in your working computer. Turn on the “dead” computer and it should now turn into a zombie and come alive.

Read the whole article here.
Courtesy: Help2Go

This past Saturday was very nice. It wasn’t scortching hot or raining. Everyone pitched in and did some stuff outside. It always looks so nice when it is done so I figured I would share it with everyone.

Here’s some bears we got a few years back in Lake George. My father made the stand they are on.

Here’s a wooden turtle.

There is a story to the next two photos. Jamie found this really cute turtle figure with a straw hat and one paw in the air waving at you at Rite-Aid. I accidentally broke it when playing soccer, so we buried his head in the flower bed. The big guy is the replacement turtle, he’s just a cute with his flower.

And here is me if I was a frog in the backyard.

The neighbors are extending the second story on the back of their house. Going pretty well, just need better weather to finish it up.

Recently a robin made a nest above the back deck on the new gutter and deck light. We never had the gutter there before so that is probably why we never had a bird’s nest there before. We typically get them in the potted plants on the front porch. It’s nice having them on the front porch because you see them grow up from in the house without disturbing them. Unfortunately in the nest in the back is right above one of the chair spots, so “bombs away!” if you catch my drift.

We thought about moving it before it laid it’s eggs, but we waited too long and now can’t touch it because we don’t want the mother to abandon the nest. We are used to seeing all sorts of birds in the yard all summer. We get sparrows, pigeons, a lot of crows, robins, blue jays, and cardinals. Usually it’s the sparrows that make a nest somewhere, first time a robin did it. I can’t wait to see them grow up. Wish I could peek at the blue eggs, but once again don’t want to disturb it.

I’ll be nice and keep his age secret, although I think he wouldn’t mind, it’s my mother that would kill me!

This past Saturday was my father’s birthday. Typically Father’s Day and his birthday fall on the same weekend, but since Father’s Day was a week early this year we had to celebrate them separately. It’s not so bad, just more cake and ice cream for everyone.

His major gift was the NASCAR tickets given to him on Father’s Day (it all stems from the days typically being together), so we had to just get him a little something to open with cake. He likes cigars and the lottery so it was one stop shopping to Smokes-4-Less over by Marist College. I like that Smokes-4-Less best because it is bigger than all the rest and has a walk in humidity controlled cigar area. I picked him up some various styles of the Romeo & Juliet cigar brand that he enjoys along with a bunch of scratch-offs.

We went out to dinner to the newly opened Red Robin on Route 9 near the new CRM building. I have had the pleasure of eating at a Red Robin before so I knew how great the burgers were. We went a little early because that place is still packed with about an hour wait if you go at the “typical” dining time, even though it has been open for a few months now.

Here’s the classic overly decorated Hannigan ice cream cake. I have no clue how it started, but regardless of who’s birthday it is we get an ice cream cake, with or without regular cake as well. It’s a good tradition, I love ice cream cake.

It was so nice out we decided to enjoy the evening outside. We had cake, ice cream and coffee while he opened his gifts. Afterward Jamie and I kicked around the soccer ball till dark.

Once again another busy week, sorry for the late posts.

Happy Father’s Day to all the father’s out there, hope you had a good weekend two weekends ago. I’m just going to quickly post some pictures from father’s day. Jamie and I got my father tickets to see the Nascar race at Pocono Raceway in August. He just recently became a Nascar fan and has never been to a race so we figured it was a great gift. Pocono is in Pennsylvania, about 2.5 hours away from home, so not a bad ride at all for such a major event.

Aren’t the gifts pretty??

One of my clients installed XP SP3 on his laptop and many things went wrong. His computer would not shut down properly, it would just halt at “Logging Off” and never move until the default timeout period of 10 minutes would expire and it would shut off. Another issue was the wireless network utility wouldn’t load, so in order to get on the network you had to restart the Wireless Zero Configuration service, set Windows to manage the wireless card, and then connect to the network. On top of all this, his AutoCAD program also would not completely install. What I mess.

I fixed everything by uninstalling SP3, updating the BIOS, chipset, and wireless drivers. I had to also disable the Telephony service because that was causing the hangup on shutdown, even after SP3 was uninstalled. It wasn’t needed so it was safe to disable it from starting.

After all was well, I tried to run the 100 updates that it needed besides SP3. I kept getting the error ‘Error: A problem on your computer is preventing updates from being downloaded.’ I tried everything I could think of and nothing worked. I found some help on Caffeine Fueled Blog that solved my issue. The entire article can be found here.

In order to restore Windows Updates, with SP3 installed or without it, open up the command prompt and type in the following lines, hitting enter after each one.

net stop wuauserv
regsvr32 wuapi.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32 wucltui.dll
regsvr32 wups.dll
regsvr32 wups2.dll
regsvr32 wuweb.dll
net start wuauserv

This will stop the Windows Update service, re-register all the necessary Windows Update dll files, and then restart the Windows Update service.

Big thanks to Josh at Caffeine Fueled Blog for thinking of this.

Don’t forget to be part of Firefox’s Download Day!

Mark your calendar, wrap a ribbon around your finger or write a little sticky yellow note. Download Day will start on June 17, 2008.