Corrupt Registry

[dverdier]

Is there any way to repair my system image when dism and sfc will not complete because of corruption without formatting the drive and starting over? I should note that I can't reinstall windows on top of the current install either keeping my settings or starting new.

[Needfuldoer]

Make sure it's not a corrupt user account first. Create a new user account and use that one for a bit.

[dverdier]

14 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Make sure it's not a corrupt user account first. Create a new user account and use that one for a bit.

That's a good idea. If it turns out to be the acc, is that fixable or do I have to del it and start a new one.

[PowerPCFan]

6 minutes ago, dverdier said:

That's a good idea. If it turns out to be the acc, is that fixable or do I have to del it and start a new one.

You probably won't be able to easily fix a corrupt account. If that is the problem, you'll hopefully be able to copy all your apps and files manually to the new account, if you have basic knowledge of where apps, data, and files are located on your hard drive. 

[xAcid9]

Usually there's a backup for all each registry hive, are they corrupted too? 

[dverdier]

1 minute ago, PowerPCFan said:

You probably won't be able to easily fix a corrupt account. If that is the problem, you'll hopefully be able to copy all your apps and files manually to the new account, if you have basic knowledge of where apps, data, and files are located on your hard drive. 

I can do that

[dverdier]

1 minute ago, xAcid9 said:

Usually there's a backup for all each registry hive, are they corrupted too? 

I don't know what a hive is or where it may be to find out.

[PowerPCFan]

@dverdier I doubt it's a corrupted registry so right now, you should probably follow @Needfuldoer's advice, make a new account, and see if that works fine. If it does, try to save your files and apps from the old account. 

[PowerPCFan]

@dverdier I hope you didn't follow a TikTok Tech Tip and delete System32!  

[noname8365]

Yes, I get that sometimes when memory overclocking. Just use system restore (from the repair menu) to restore the last point (usually there will be some automatically set by Windows Update)

[dverdier]

Just now, PowerPCFan said:

@dverdier I hope you didn't follow a TikTok Tech Tip and delete System32!  

I don't have tik tok nor would I ever go there for help. I've been using pcs since 386 and win 3.0. If I can't figure it out I usually go to a place like this. Would it help if I posted a screenshot of the dism errors I'm getting?

[PowerPCFan]

2 minutes ago, dverdier said:

I don't have tik tok nor would I ever go there for help.

Yeah me neither, never downloaded it and never plan on it. I only meant that as a joke  

 

2 minutes ago, dverdier said:

Would it help if I posted a screenshot of the dism errors I'm getting?

Sure, I'm not as knowledgeable when it comes to errors and what they mean, but you might as well post them just in case I can figure something out or if someone else wants to take a look. 

[noname8365]

7 minutes ago, dverdier said:

I don't know what a hive is or where it may be to find out.

A hive is a file of the registry. If they are corrupted it indicates corrupted data is being written to disk

[PowerPCFan]

@dverdier I just thought of Hiren's BootCD PE, you could try making a USB, booting it, and recovering your system from there - there are some great tools on it! 

[dverdier]

1 minute ago, noname8365 said:

Yes, I get that sometimes when memory overclocking. Just use system restore (from the repair menu) to restore the last point (usually there will be some automatically set by Windows Update)

My ram oc is just enabled xmp and been like that for about a year. I recently used a program that uninstalls everything that programs leave behind and I think it took more away from the reg than it should've. Everything was fine for a couple weeks. Thurs I came home from work and had no sound. After trying to reinstall drivers and that not working I started doing other stuff and found that I have some corruption. The sound I lost was thru hdmi. After many hours of screwing around I finally got the idea to try a fiber cable and that gives me sound no problem. I still wanted to fix the dism from not working so I ended up here. I suppose I shouldve started with thew back story.

[dverdier]

1 minute ago, PowerPCFan said:

@dverdier I just thought of Hiren's BootCD PE, you could try making a USB, booting it, and recovering your system from there - there are some great tools on it! 

I tried usb and an oem win10 disk. It won't work

[PowerPCFan]

4 minutes ago, dverdier said:

I tried usb and an oem win10 disk. It won't work

Wdym? Your PC won't boot any disks or USBs? 

[dverdier]

I got into logs too but that was beyond my comprehension. I should mention too that I get distributedCOM errors in event viewer

[PowerPCFan]

6 minutes ago, dverdier said:

I got into logs too but that was beyond my comprehension. I should mention too that I get distributedCOM errors in event viewer

Check out the top 3 search results, might help: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=the+configuration+registry+database+is+corrupt&atb=v415-2&ia=web

 

EDIT: I'm seeing you already tried sfc and dism, the 3rd article might have some more fixes though. 

Maybe try chkdsk? 

[dverdier]

4 minutes ago, PowerPCFan said:

Wdym? Your PC won't boot any disks or USBs? 

It won't make a usb to try and fix it and it will boot from the win disk but it wont install. I didn't realize at first you were recommending someone elses tool. That may work. Just windows won't make one on its own

[PowerPCFan]

2 minutes ago, dverdier said:

It won't make a usb to try and fix it and it will boot from the win disk but it wont install. I didn't realize at first you were recommending someone elses tool. That may work. Just windows won't make one on its own

I see. You might as well give it a try, if you have a spare USB. 

 

Edit: just edited my previous post

[dverdier]

I've made another profile in windows. I'm going to what happens there and check out those results. Also look into the usb tool. I'm going to have to close this browser. Thank you all for your input. I'll come back and update soon.

[PowerPCFan]

2 minutes ago, dverdier said:

I've made another profile in windows. I'm going to what happens there and check out those results. Also look into the usb tool. I'm going to have to close this browser. Thank you all for your input. I'll come back and update soon.

OK, good luck!! 

[StDragon]

There's different registry hives. HKEY_CURRENT_USER is for each local profile on the computer. However if it's one of the system wide hives, you're screwed.

Unless you can restore a known good one from backup, you're looking at reinstalling the OS. As for why the hive database got corrupted in the first place, that's usually caused from a dirty shutdown, corruption on the drive, or RAM errors (bit flips) when erroneous changes were committed back to the hive. The last scenario is more insidious!

Highly recommend you check the health of your drive and run a memory test to validate the HW is functioning without error.

[dverdier]

Ok. A new desktop didn't work. Most of what were in those search results I had either already done or didn't work. I must've done something wrong trying to make the usb tool because I couldn't get that to load. Then holy  ****! I did the memory test and it stopped at 10,000 errors and said too many to complete test. I really hate to do it but it looks like i'll be formatting my c drive and starting over. I have had bad shutdowns recently. My 4080 melted the 180 deg adapter into the cards power port. So while that's been gone getting fixed I've had to use the igpu. That was crashing 2 or 3 times in a row and sometimes completely restarting by itself or freezing forcing me to hit the power button. It seems to be a bit better now but still crashes a game pretty regularly. When I took the card out for repair I used a ddu and then installed all the other drivers and it never did act right. PLEASE tell me those errors in the memtest doesn't mean my physical ram sticks are bad.