How to Restore Registry Hives on Windows 7

An article by Shyam Sasindran, MVP    11 Comments

There will be situation where Windows 7 won’t boot and Startup Repair won’t do any good do fix it.  Sometime corrupted Registry Hives can cause problem. In this article I’ll explain you how to restore Registry Hives on Windows 7.

Step 1:

Insert the Windows 7 Installation or Repair disk into your drive and reboot the System if you don’t have the Repair disk you could download it from Download Windows 7 System Recovery Discs — The NeoSmart Files. Make sure  you have change the BIOS boot order so the CD or DVD drive is listed first.

Step 2:

Then you’ll be prompted to “Press any key to boot from disk” so go ahead and press Enter

Ste 3:

Then it will give you language selection option click Next

Step 4:

Then you’ll find and option to “Repair your Computer”

Step 5:

Then you’ll be prompted to Select the Operating System i.e. Windows 7, select that and click Next

Note: Some occasions you’ll not find any operating system listed. Don’t panic just click Next

Step 6:

Now click on “Command Prompt”

Step 7:

Under command prompt type in C: and press enter (Assuming C drive is Windows installation folder)

Type in cd Windows\System32\Config and press Enter

Then type in MD Temp and press Enter. Command prompt will flash once.

Step 8:

Then lets make a backup of these files. Enter the following commands

copy BCD-Template Temp and Press Enter

copy COMPONENTS Temp and Press Enter

copy DEFAULT Temp and Press Enter

copy SAM Temp and Press Enter

copy SECURITY Temp and Press Enter

copy SOFTWARE Temp and Press Enter

copy SYSTEM Temp and Press Enter

Step: 9

Then type in the following commands

ren BCD-Template BCD-Template.bak and Press Enter

ren COMPONENTS COMPONENTS.bak and Press Enter

ren DEFAULT DEFAULT.bak and Press Enter

ren SAM SAM.bak and Press Enter

ren SOFTWARE SOFTWARE.bak and Press Enter

ren SECURTY SECURITY.bak and Press Enter

ren SYSTEM SYSTEM.bak and Press Enter

Step 10:

Then type in the following commands

copy C:\Windows\System32\Config\Regback\BCD-Template C:\Windows\System32\Config\BCD-Template and Press Enter

copy C:\Windows\System32\Config\Regback\COMPONENTS C:\Windows\System32\Config\COMPONENTS and Press Enter

copy C:\Windows\System32\Config\Regback\DEFAULT C:\Windows\System32\Config\DEFAULT and Press Enter

copy C:\Windows\System32\Config\Regback\SAM C:\Windows\System32\Config\SAM and Press Enter

copy C:\Windows\System32\Config\Regback\SECURITY C:\Windows\System32\Config\SECURITY and Press Enter

copy C:\Windows\System32\Config\Regback\SOFTWARE C:\Windows\System32\Config\SOFTWARE and Press Enter

copy C:\Windows\System32\Config\Regback\SYSTEM C:\Windows\System32\Config\SYSTEM and Press Enter

or

CD Regback

cd *.* ..

Step 11:

Now type in Exit and Click on Restart

See it you are able to boot into Windows properly.

You could also use Paragon Software (Free edition) to restore those file. Use the File Transfer to copy the files over. Thanks to SIW2 for this tip.

Update: I have created a video tutorial