Accessing Registry

[CorruptedSanitY]

I recently had some trouble with XP. So i decided to format.
So far so good. Then something happened and I cannot load windows. So to temporarily gather personal files and stuff. I installed a fresh copy of XP on my second HD (e:\)

I was sucessfully able to save my files and folders which were on the desktop and my documents of the original XP instalation. (c:\)

The problem is I wanna access c:\ registry. Coz i want to get a serial number of Counter-Strike. It is available in the registry and I dont have it written down anywhere.

Any suggestions?

[ktkendall]

Did you try
run>regedit
or
run>regedt32
That should get you in but where to find that number you want could actually be a little more of a task... There is the find feature under edit on the top menu...

[reboot]

Running regedit is only going to open the current registry on E. It will not allow access to the old registry on C.
I think you'll find what you need in c:\documents and settings\username\ntuser.dat

[ktkendall]

Yes, thats right, Sorry I didn't study the post enough to understand the problem, I knew I was probably missing something. Problem is that those .dat files are not just text though are they??? Mine look like some kind of machine code or something when I open one of them for another user that is not currently loggod on...

[CorruptedSanitY]

Yah thats the problem I have. It obivously only opens my current registry.

Ill try reboot's way later when im home...

but thanks you two !

[ktkendall]

I even find a file called ntuser.dat.log which says it's a text file but at least with using notepad to open them, this one and the ntuser.dat are not in plain text. Unless there is another application that one would use to open these type of files so that they could be read as plain English text, but I really wouldn't think that is possible..

[reboot]

Most of it won't be in plain text, so you have to hunt through it, but the serialnum will be there in plain numbers

[CorruptedSanitY]

reboot... Ok i got to those two files mentioned.
I was able to open the one which was called ntuser.dat which has the icon of a notepad.

There wasnt alot of info in there..just some like

regf²° ²° (B�öçÚÂ  à‚ t i n g s \ USER NAME \ n t u s e r . d a t = "winnt" standardserverupgrade = "no" winntupgrade = "no" win9xupgrade = "no" win31upgrade = "no" sourcepath = "\device\cdrom1\" floppyless = "0" msdosinitiated = "0" dospath=F:\

There was another icon which has no program to open with called NTuser DAT file which i opened with notepad and found alot of characters.. I searched and found the word " counter " from the game counter-strike.. now how am i supposed to find the serial # ? :\ i have no idea what it starts with.. its like a needle in a hay stack

[reboot]

True, if you don't really have a clue how many digits it is, or what it might start with, it's going to be a long search. I only know of one other way, and that's to run a repair on the original Windows installation on C and see if you can get it back. You'll end up with two installs of XP, but you can delete one of them later.

[CorruptedSanitY]

reboot, so how is the second way?
coz so far i already have XP installed on HD1 which is c:\
and also installed currently on HD2 e:\

[CorruptedSanitY]

hmmm

[ktkendall]

Probably what he may have been thinking is to now boot from C:, and then just use regedit to find what you are seeking...

[CorruptedSanitY]

I cant boot to C:\
it says there is a file whicih is crroupted..so i inserted the XP install CD and tried to fix the problem.. as soon as it will begin fixing the problem..my pc reestarts.. its hopeless..

[reboot]

How did you try and fix the problem? Are you attempting a repair from the console, or what?

[CorruptedSanitY]

I inserted the XP set cd and pressed " R " to repair..

Ive done this before..but this time it does not go thru.. the pc restarts just before attemptin to fix the problem.

[agamemnon]

I have a non-orthodox way to find your key. If you have access to a Unix based system get the file to it, (in binary if you use FTP) change directorys to where your file is and in the terminal, type "strings ntuser >> myntuser.tmp" then with your choice of editor (vi is standard) open the file ("vi myntuser.tmp") you will be able to see only the plain text that you extracted. If you have no access to a Unix based machine, try using a hex editor like Ultra-Edit.

[reboot]

Start the XP install as if it were new, you will be prompted to run the repair console, select no, and install, you will again be prompted to repair a previous installation, then you hit "R".