Thank you Roy.
I may have a problem in that the log will not contain any useful information since the hive cannot be read at all. It is not that a key or 2 is bad - the entire hive is unreadable. That forces me to use the semi-functional backup from the %system%\windows\system32\config\RegBack folder.
I am not sure if there are any option to repair the SOFTWARE hive that cannot be read at all.
To finalize this thread.....
The registry was damaged beyond practical repair by Acronis True Image. I ended up doing another couple of days of troubleshooting and tests. The conclusion was that the data was never backup correctly in the first place, making a restore pointless. It was just good enough to get the system booted, but it was an unstable and partially working system.
I managed, after three tries, to get a repair install accomplished which repaired most things. As expected, I am now struggling with licenses, preferences, and settings for the expensive software on the machine. It also will not update by any known method (another thread altogether).
Lesson learned - test your backup scheme before you actually need it. I had a RAID5, local image, and cloud image that one by one failed in sequence. My strategy for image backup will forever change after this. Multiple paths to backup with actual recovery tests to verify the integrity of the whole process. It is a pain and time consuming, but this has led me on a wild goose chase for months. Never again.....
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