Thinkpads Forum

I tend to include too much info in this things, so I will try and keep to just the important stuff. Yesterday, I tried to use R&R to defrag and optimize my T60. I noticed that after 30 minutes it seemed to be making no progress/was stuck on analyzing the system. After another 10 minutes, still no progress. Thinking it was stuck, I shut it down (now I realize this was a very stupid thing to do). When I tried to reboot, I got the following error message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\system32\c_1252.nls

I thought I could do a restore for a backup, but that isn't fixing it and I still get the error message. I could restore to factory settings, but I would lose a lot of information, and I am not even sure if that will fix it. Any suggestions, as I am very concerned. Thank you for any help you can give.

Welcome to the forum.

Sounds like your registry has been corrupted. The good news is that to me from what you descibe it sounds like your data is safe.

You need to boot from a live CD that will allow a prior restore point to be installed.

Brad

Brad wrote:Welcome to the forum.

Sounds like your registry has been corrupted. The good news is that to me from what you descibe it sounds like your data is safe.

You need to boot from a live CD that will allow a prior restore point to be installed.

Brad

Thank you so much for replying. Would this be one of the cds I created when I bought the computer? I also see cds sold on ebay called windows XP system setup disk-Emergency boot disk. Would that help? Is there tutorial or something I can read that would walk me through this? Thanks again!!!

I think Brad means a Linux Live CD. You can boot from it and run the OS, but it doesn't install anything. You should be able to read the contents of the hard drive and dump them onto an external hard drive, flash memory or on the network. If you purchase an external case you can throw the drive in there and dump the files onto another PC.

Like Fred mentions the live CD I am referring to is not one that can be created from your Thinkvantage software. The live CD that I have had success with is called ERD Commander. Once a part of Winternals Microsoft took over a while back. There may be other live CD's that can also recover a saved restore point from a non-booting system.

Brad

I use and recommend the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows

Brad and Fred,
Again, thanks for the information. I am not having success finding the ERD commander disk. Is it available as a download? This will work with Windows XP? Smidgley, if I have no luck with the Commander disk, I will try the Ultimate Boot CD. Thanks to all!!!!

You can probably get it via Pirate Bay.

Harryc wrote:http://www.geekstogo.com/2009/01/17/erd ... microsoft/

Unfortunately, the free trial seems dead. I have gone ahead and purchased it from Flea Bay. So is it pretty straightforward what to do after I boot from this disk? Do I just restore from one of my previous backups? Thanks again. I really hate not having my T60!

Well, what I would do is get an external case, put the hard drive there, retrieve the I386 (in case you have Windows XP), because using those files you could create a bootable CD that lets you do a repair of the Windows installation. If your using Vista are other options available.

I have to remove the hard drive and purchase an external case? Would it be possible to use an external hard drive instead? Yes, I am using Windows XP. Do I copy the entire I386 directory (something like 7000 files)? Thanks!

So I got ERD commander, but not having success. It starts up ok, goes to "registering network components" and then states "Failed to install network adapter-check WINBOM". It then brings up a window asking which windows installation I want to repair, but only "none" is listed. When the program fully loads, I go to try "system restore" and receive the message "ERD system restore could not locate the target offline OS".

I guess the WINBOM thing might be starting me off on the wrong foot, but I don't see how to restore to a previous point. If anyone can help, that would be great. Beginning to think that this is much worse than I hoped. Thanks.