Today, while I was working, my computer encountered an error and had t be shut down. When I restarted it, it would not boot, saying there was an error in the registry key somethin-sommethin/SOFTWARE. Anyway, I tried multiple ways of starting the computer in safe mode, last known configuration, etc. When none of these worked, I became desperate and reinstalled Windows XP. Now my hard drive is intact, but the programs menu, usr accounts, all my settings, desktop, and more are gone. Is there any way to restore my settings etc. I really need it, my computer had a heck of a lotta stuff on it.

I have a maxtor external hard drive on which a somewhat recent backup exists, but to my utter dismay, the catalog file for the backup has diappeared, and Danz Retrospect will not restore my system without it. I tried copying the windows directory from the backup to my HD, but I cannot replace system files which are currently in use.

PLease help me... :(

Go to C:\Documents And Settings\ and check what user accounts are there. My girlfriends mother once had a problem with her PC, reinstalled Windows and then the setup created new accounts etc. for her. She thought all her stuff had disappeared but it hadn't actually disappeared. She had given all her user accounts the same name so that now in Docs & Settings there was a JoeBloggs & a JoeBloggs_Old etc. You're settings might still be there somewhere - just renamed to something else.

If there are the old profiles still there, just try copying the shortcuts, files etc. from the old profiles to the new ones. I did try renaming the new profiles to the same as the old, along with diving into the registry but there was too much stuff to change.

You said you had a backup of the PC. Couldn't you just completely wipe the PC and restore it using this backup? P.s. - a copy of the Windows directory is not a backup!

I would contact Danz for support. You should be able to do a restore without the catalog.

But it sounds like you did a fresh install of XP rather then using the Repair option. If you did, that probably reformatted your drive. In which case, that backup is probably your only hope.

While this may not help now, I would strongly recommend that before you try reinstalling anything, you partition your drive into at least 3 partitions; C for the OS ONLY, D for data files and E for programs (executables). You should also move your Documents and Settings folder to the D drive (you can find instructions on the WEB). This how I have my system setup. So even if Windows becomes corrupt and I have to reinstall, my data is still intact.

I backup my data files daily to an external drive and then use Ghost to create clones of the C drive whenever I make a change.