windows system32 config system is corrupt in Windows Server 2003
December 28, 2006
Resolution
1. Insert your Windows Server 2003 CD and reboot from the CD drive
[To boot from CD, go to BIOS Setup option on startup and select your CD/DVD drive as the first boot drive, save the present settings and exit]
Your computer will reboot & will boot from Windows Server 2003
2. Press ‘R’ when offered the option of using the Windows Recovery Console
Recovery Console will prompt at the command prompt type the following:
C:\WINDOWS >cd system32\
this changes the current directory to C:\Windows\System32
ren config configold
This renames the config folder to configold
mkdir config
this makes a new directory called config
cd config
changes the current directory to c:\Windows\System32\Config
then type the following lines pressing enter after each one
copy c:\windows\repair\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security
copy c:windows\repair\default
after each line it should say:
1 file copied
type: exit
Now Server will reboot
[To boot from Hard Drive, go to BIOS Setup option on startup and select your Hard drive as the first boot drive, save the present settings and exit]
February 5, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Excellent process. Saved me many hours of rebuilding a corrupted system.
Thanks,
Buz
April 10, 2007 at 2:07 am
My windows going blank.. what should i do..
??
April 11, 2007 at 6:47 am
Thanks for suggestion, hope this works!
April 11, 2007 at 7:41 am
This doesn’t work on my server though!!!!!
May 10, 2007 at 8:45 am
What will this fix do? Does it work on a Small Business Server? Will it change any configurations (e.g. Exchange etc)?
May 16, 2007 at 11:07 am
No changes required for exchange
It as fixed lots of issues for different ppl.
Its all depends on OS.
Try & check
May 21, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Works a treat and I see errors like this a lot in my line of work and I hadn’t come across it before.
May 22, 2007 at 7:49 am
Thanks You ver Much this is really save my time
June 30, 2007 at 2:31 am
i need to download the 32 config were do i do that
July 5, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Works!
September 29, 2007 at 3:57 am
Worked! Thanks; this solved the issue with the server of a customer. And saved me a lot headache however this only succeeded after I made an image of the drive and followed the procedure with the server drive connected to my workstation. In de server itself the windows recovery console crashed everytime.
November 21, 2007 at 7:06 am
Got this error message on a server used for testing, so it contained only Windows and VMware Server. Reinstalling wouldn’t have been much worse, but knowing the repair option should be useful somehow, I set out to actually solve the problem, not only overwrite it..
Your article solved the problem completely, however I notice that all user settings are gone, and I have to reinstall VMware Server application. It was due for an upgrade anyways..
Thanks a lot for this excellent solution!
TP
December 10, 2007 at 4:25 pm
for some reason i can do all but copy over the new files it just keeps saying the system cannot find the file specerfied.
many thanks jon
December 10, 2007 at 6:17 pm
as it turns out the c:\windows repair file is missing the system,software, sam, security and default files are missing wot can i do apart from a fully reinstall to sort this
January 22, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Thank you! This this brought my SBS 2003 box back to life.
January 31, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Yo,
Came in this morning and the server was thrashed by an electrical storm the night before. Got the corrupted message … did chkdsk 5x’s before it reported the HDD clean. It was ugly. Was on the phone w/ Dell server support (needed a little help getting the controller booted so that the repair console could see the disks … I had always ignored the F6 option). Anyway, aside from that, me and Dell didn’t know how to fix it, I was able to recover and boot into OS using these instructions. After being impressed, the Dell rep asked me to FW this page to him and he’s going to run it up the flagpole as a solution to problems such as this. I backed up my critical data, and restored the server from backup. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS TECH NOTE. YOU SAVED MY LIFE.
February 12, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Hi Greg,
With Pressure you can always my blog for more tech tips.
Did dell guys run it up the flagpole as a solution to problems such as this?
Cheers
Bala
February 27, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Top Bloke
works a treat although i did get access denied on the cd windows dir but a simple logon with cured this thank you yet again.
Rob
April 28, 2010 at 5:59 am
Hi
When I type logon on command prompt, there is no request for the local administrator password! What Should I do?
March 14, 2008 at 10:35 am
Many other guides detail copying the backed up files into the config folder which was not working for me. This guide gets you to create a new config folder which worked a treat for me and saved me the time of a rebuild. Only problem was the backed up files were quite out of date. Is there any way to force more regular updates of system files?
March 14, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Hi Daniel,
I am glad to here that you have successfully recovered your server back online.
Can i know what regular updates of system files you are looking for?
please post your quires http://creativerides.forumotion.com
May 21, 2008 at 8:35 am
Amigo,
Muito obrigado. Muito me ajudou com a sua destreza.
May 22, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Merci beaucoup!
j’avais l’erreur sous Windows serveur 2003 en serveur virtuel avec un disk .vhd
\windows\system32\config\system
et cette manipilation a corriger le problème.
il y a aussi Winimage v8 avec keygen disponible sur le site download.com et le keygen vous le trouverai facilement j’en suis certain. Avec Winimage v8 il est possible de copier le stoke de votre disk .vdh vers un répertoire backup de votre choix sur votre machine.
a+
vous
June 2, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Thanks! This worked great for our server. Saved me from having to troubleshoot for hours or even re-install.
June 17, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Hi Mate
Thanks for your article it save my life.
My server backup again and working fine.
Thanks
October 12, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Hi
Thanks for the help It’s working.
I lost some files can i trace them back??/
October 26, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Thank you very much
my server is alive now
October 28, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Thank you.Now startup the server.We are happy.I am listening to sagopa.thanks
November 9, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Thanks most excellent, safe me lots of time. Worked beautifully.
December 11, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Hey, thanks! I had some VMware images that I needed badly off my trashed server and this at least got me booting up again! Now, if I just knew how to get Administrator to use his original directories/desktop….
January 9, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Great Blog posting. The advice worked great. I did have to reinstall a few applications like VNC and VMWare Server.
April 21, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Thanks solved my problem you are a Genius
May 20, 2009 at 2:46 pm
I get a file copied for all of them except copy c:\windows\repair\system? Any suggestions. I have tried repeatedly.
Ken
June 28, 2009 at 6:49 pm
It worked great until I rebooted, not it acts like it’s going to boot into windows but restarts every time it gets into the boot screen. I have no idea what the hell to do now but a fresh install.
July 24, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Excellent,
sorted broken server in minutes not hours
August 26, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Thank you so much!
I love posts like this that help fix a problem quickly and efficiently.
August 27, 2009 at 4:39 am
This totally saved my Ass. THANK YOU!!!!!
October 26, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Excellent process, really its a very quick solution..
November 5, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I invite you to view my new web site (http://www.techgyaan.org) for latest updates on IT & Technology.
I do not host technical post here anymore (http://rules.wordpress.com), I’ve moved all my post to my own website – (http://www.techgyaan.org)
We are pleased to announce the launch of our new-look web site. We hope that you find it easy and enjoyable to use.
For your comment & feedback please do write a mail info@techgyaan.org
This blog will continue with my personal updates
So, thank you folks for a great time, and see you all there!
December 23, 2009 at 10:27 am
Hi,
thanks a lot for your help
I just have one question, using your method windows ask me for the administrator password but now the password did not work !!!
there is a default password in this case (with this method) because the previous one want work.
Kind Regards
January 3, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Saved me a lot of time. Thanks alot
January 6, 2010 at 11:52 am
Hi,
There is no default password you must remember your local system password not domain password if your computer was in a domain. And there another point that people does not consider; by applying this method all your registry information will be lost and if you don’t have any backup (ip address, some drivers information, domain information,etc.)
Regards
January 13, 2010 at 3:47 pm
EXCELLENT….MS knowledge base articles had registry restore garbage, hot fixes, etc….After applying this fix my only problem was that the server would indicate destination unreachable when doing a ping to any IP other than itself…I right clicked and ran a repair on the network adapter in control panel with same results.. then uninstalled HP Nic Team from the connection “server only has one nic so it was not needed” and presto back in business in less than 45 minutes….Exchange is running fine, two errors that I’ll work out but nothing serious…Server 2003 RC2 on HP ML350 running Exchange 2003….Thanks for the article…
January 21, 2010 at 1:03 pm
After completing all copy. My system continuous restarting. What will do?
January 22, 2010 at 3:40 am
Sounds great going to try this today on my one File & Print server, one doubt “will this recovery retains the share & NTFS permissions that i have set for ths folders?”
January 26, 2010 at 2:02 pm
You have no idea how much this post has helped me. Truly, Thank you so much. I could not find this straightforward information anywhere else. Thankyou Thankyou.
February 13, 2010 at 8:50 am
Hi,
Thanks man i spend several hours recovering my system but with your solution is solved my problem within 2 minutes. Great!!
February 23, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Thanks
Everything went well. Except my server keeps on restarting too. Any suggestions?
February 23, 2010 at 7:05 pm
I was actually only able to copy everything except the default file.
June 10, 2010 at 12:40 pm
I tried to mkdir config, after renaming config to configold in the system32 directory, however I cannot make the dir.
June 16, 2010 at 5:43 am
If the system reboots contineously after applying the above solutions then
Try the following steps.
cd c:\windows\system32 press enter
ren config confignew press enter
ren configold config press enter
exit
and restart
July 31, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Merci
Br
Andr&
September 9, 2010 at 4:17 pm
There is only one thing I want to say… :
GOD BLESS YOU !!!!
September 10, 2010 at 9:09 am
Hi ITGS,
I invite you to view my new web site (http://www.techgyaan.org) for latest updates on IT & Technology.
I do not host technical post here anymore (http://rules.wordpress.com), I’ve moved all my post to my own website – (http://www.techgyaan.org)
We are pleased to announce the launch of our new-look web site. We hope that you find it easy and enjoyable to use.
For your comment & feedback please do write a mail info@techgyaan.org
This blog will continue with my personal updates
So, thank you for a great time, and see you all there!
November 25, 2010 at 4:51 am
Hey,
m using Server 2003…..
By using above method previously installed softwares or applications rus as usally or should i re install n config that n my server is bit infected of virus bt AV is not able to clear that pls suggest any tools to clean that
pls help me…..
December 22, 2010 at 9:40 am
Worked for me on SBS 2003, Saved me Hours. I was starting to think I had to do a system rebuild!
January 17, 2011 at 5:29 pm
This got the server booting again, but I had to re-apply SP2 and over 130 updates. Plus DNS seems to have lost all forwards and domain entries. two primary exchange services won’t start and SQL doesn’t seem to be responsing even though it is started. Not sure if this was caused by the crash or this fix. Anyone have any ideas?
July 11, 2011 at 2:30 am
Thank you very much.. I saved my time for in fixing that error..
October 29, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Thanks! Excellent!
November 24, 2011 at 10:13 am
Hi!
This worked on Windows SBS 2003 R2.
Thanks!!!
Andrzej
December 19, 2011 at 1:37 pm
very good solution! Its work!!!! thanks!
March 31, 2012 at 9:01 pm
Todo funcionó muy bien. Muchas gracias.