Solved What if I copy someone else's registry files?

[bluedino]

My Win7 home premium 64bit registry is corrupt. I've tried repairing it using System Recovery Options and Startup Repair 3 times but they didn't work. I've tried to copy the files from windows32/system/config/regback to windows32/system/config still no luck (the back-up files seem to be more corrupt too, actually worse as it doesn't seem to follow the numbers in http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/139576-startup-repair-infinite-loop-recovery.html, so I reversed it when I couldn't save that either as I made a backup of the original registry before using regback as suggested in http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/139576-startup-repair-infinite-loop-recovery.html). I tried:
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /RebuildBcd

But that didn't work.

I tried chkdsk d: f/ with dismount (my windows files are in d: with c: as a reserve). I tried sfc /scannow /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=d:\windows also.

I have no backups saved and I already retrieved my documents from the computer. So my question is: Can I copy someone else's regback or even current registry files and just use theirs or will the system be too unstable. I was thinking of using someone's win 7 home premium 32bit though as I have the only computer with 64bit. And is there a way to copy program settings like from program files, specifically firefox as I like the way I have it customized and have some passwords saved on to it. I was thinking of first saving a backup of my current registry just in case.

So I would use an external harddrive (let's call it j):
cd d:\windows\system32\config
copy *.* j:\backupcurrent

Then copy the windows\system32\config\regback of a healthy Win7 computer, then

copy j:\windows\system32\config\regback\system d:\windows\system32\config\system
copy j:\windows\system32\config\regback\software d:\windows\system32\config\software
copy j:\windows\system32\config\regback\security d:\windows\system32\config\security
copy j:\windows\system32\config\regback\sam d:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy j:\windows\system32\config\regback\default d:\windows\system32\config\default

Thoughts?

 

[whs]

Your plan will not work. Since you have your files backed up, you better reinstall. And next time make frequent images so that you can easily set back.

 

[bluedino]

I was afraid of that, so a clean install is the only answer? Also, is there anything I can do about the firefox like copying the program file, or will I have to start from scratch with that? Thanks, and I will keep backups in the future.

 

[whs]

From the browsers you should backup your favorites.

 

[bluedino]

thanks

 

[bluedino]

One last question, the only reason the system restore is not working is because of error 0x80070017. Is there a way to fix that? From what I read, it seemed to be a cyclic redundancy check caused during installation, but my computer crashed after I installed Windows 7 updates on last Friday. Maybe you know a way around that?

 

[whs]

That is catch 22. The error was probably introduced by a corrupted update and now it prevents you from going back to a previous restore point. Tough call. That is one reason I always make an image before I change anything in my system. The image I can always pull in without relying on windows.

Bottom line: No idea what you can do if you have no images. Sorry.