Objective of this document.....

What Can Go Wrong ?

For boot and partition sector damage repair you only need a simple Windows 95 booting diskette with a few system files on it. These corruptions are caused through hardware malfunctions, mains current surges and user power-downs before system confirm ation. Classic symptoms of this type of damage is when your machine cannot boot the POST diagnostics screen, yet CMOS reports that all your hardware is correctly identified.

Isn't a Tape Streamer Backup System Good Enough ?

But, in the real world, it is seldom the case that complete and perfect tape backups are always available. Complete system backups take time to execute and it is rare to find sites with the discipline to run weekly wall-to-wall tape backups.

When disaster strikes you stand to lose the data you created since your last backup and maybe you can recover the drive with some artful tinkering. Or at least access it to copy off your critical data. And that's what this article is all about - some advance tinkering to give you the the tools for repairing system damage.

What you really need is a comprehensive tape backup with interim data backups (to diskette or tape) and a backup of the registry whenever it changes.

What's the Registry ?
Why does it Corrupt ?
How Do I Recover from a Corrupted Registry ?

The most likely time for a corruption to occur is when the power is interrupted during a registry write which happens typically during shutdown and when programs are being installed or removed. You usually don't know about the damage until the next time you try to start up the computer. Windows will refuse to load and you'll be left with a black DOS-like screen displaying one of several error messages all conveying the same chilling news; "Windows cannot load" or "Registry corrupted". Hmmmm, what now? Chances are you won't have a registry backup on hand. If you did, you could be underway again within 60 seconds!

For registry recovery (the big one) you need a System Recovery Diskette and a backup of your registry files. And this disk needs to be updated regularly, especially after you have installed new hardware. Symptoms of corrupted registry problems are when Windows tells you just that! "Can't load - Registry corrupted - Contact system support and restore from backups." The backups they are talking about are Registry Backups and not data backups. And this is what you need to have in place.

A further problem can occur if you are loading your Windows 95 operating system from a CD drive. When re-installing (if the above registry recovery did not work of if your drive has crashed) you must gain access to the CD drive and have it initialised so that you can read and load from the Windows 95 CD.

So what do you need to have prepared ?

Two Solutions are suggested

1. Install ERS-32 (Emergency Recovery System 32) and create a bootable "Recovery Diskette".
   or
   
2. Manually backup the registry file to diskette.

The ERS32 backup is the recommended route. It is widely accepted that the built-in Win95 backup utilities ERU and CFGBACK are buggy and the manual backup of registry files is a labourious task fraught with danger.

Both of the above solutions rely on the drive being available but with one or more of the Windows elements damaged. In other words; you can boot from the hard drive or from a diskette and access the hard drive but Windows will not start up. Although this accounts for most situations, is the hard disk is not accessible then only full backups (such as tape backups) will enable a successful recovery.

1. The ERS-32 Backup System

1.1   Obtain a copy of the ERS-32 program from the Internet. It is only 172kB in size
        and available from SoftSeek or search Filez for ERS32 or from the author's website
        at www.mslm.com. Once installed it is a simple one-button click to create backups of
        your critical registry and configuration files into one of three nominated backup
        directories.
        The backup software also makes batch files in the root directory and all you need do is
        to run the latest of the three batch files (that ERS creates) to restore your configuration
        and registry files.

1.2   Create a bootable diskette to bring the hard disk up in the event of system file damage.
        No CD-ROM configuration files are required as registry restoration will bring back the
        parameters for the CD drive. (see item 2.2.1 below for diskette creation)

If you do nothing else, then at least you have taken some big time disaster insurance by installing ERS-32. Run it to backup to the "oldest slot" on a monthly basis or whenever you add or delete a program that you suspect has altered your registry. The remainder of this document discusses alternatives and other disaster recovery/prevention techniques.

2. Manual Backup of the Registry Files

You will need:

1.	A Bootable Win95 diskette
2.1	To Re-install - from CD:	2.1.1	DOS Disk - Setup to initialise CD
		2.1.2	Original Win 95 CD
.. or ..
2.2	To Re-install - from diskettes:		Original Win'95 Install Diskettes
3	The Windows 95 Serial Number		(see section below)
4	A Registry Backup		(see section below)

1.     Windows 95 System Disk

To create this disk:
From Win'95; START PROGRAMS MS-DOS

FORMAT  A: S
COPY  C:\WINDOWS\FORMAT.COM  A:
COPY  \WINDOWS\FDISK.EXE  A:
COPY  C:\WINDOWS\SYS.COM  A:

2.1.1     DOS Disk - Setup to Initialise CD

To create this disk:
From a PC with DOS 6,22 installed: (not Windows 95)

FORMAT  A: S
COPY  C:\WINDOWS\FORMAT.COM  A:
COPY  C:\WINDOWS\SYS.COM  A:

Although these commands would accommodate a generic IDE connected CD drive, your computer may require a different set of instructions. If you are unsure of what is required then you should refer this issue to your hardware support. Of course the files required for initialising the CD as called in these commands must also be copied onto this diskette.

2.1.2.     Original Windows95 CD

2.2     Original Windows 95 Install Diskettes

3.     The Windows 95 Serial Number

3.1.    A Registry Backup

Format a diskette, mark it "Windows 95 Registy Backup" and place it in your diskette drive, which for the purpose of this tutorial we assume to be Drive A:. The registry resides in two files, SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT, which are the only .DAT files that reside in the \WINDOWS directory but which have special attributes set which would normally render them invisible. We will change those attributes, copy them off, and then reset the attributes.

C:
CD\WINDOWS
ATTRIB  -S  -A  -R  *.DAT
COPY  *.DAT  A:
ATTRIB  +S  +A  +R  *.DAT

RegClean - Registry Clean-Up Utility

Thanks for the help, I have purchased the Ers98 program and it is a wonderful relief and has rescued me many times, I am following your advice in stages. It certainly is refreshing to have reliable help at hand as I have found it near impossible to get questions answered from technicians in the store, even when they have worked on one's computer and just say "you don't need to know" or "I don't know".
So a big thank you.
Jennifer Joyce in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

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