How to Fix an Windows XP System that Won’t Boot into Safe Mode

The following is totally copied from myfixes.com excellent article.

This article applies to the following type of errors:

Unmountable Boot Volume

Can’t run System Restore in normal mode or safe mode, can’t open programs

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\…

Stop: … {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive.

System error: Lsass.exe
When trying to update a password the return status indicates that the value provided as the current password is not correct.


Resolution:

A. Boot the system into the Recovery Console and CHKDSK

1. Insert the Windows XP cd into the top cd drive
2. Turn the computer off
3. Setup the computer to boot from cd: either by pressing F2, F9 or Delete to go in BIOS or by pressing F12 on Dell computers to launch the Boot Device Menu
4. As soon as you get the message Press any key to boot from the cd hit enter.
5. Wait ~3 minutes for the Windows Setup to initialize
6. At the Welcome to Setup screen press R to repair windows using recovery console.
7. Wait a couple of minutes while setup examines the hard drive.
8. You will be prompted to choose a Windows installation. Press 1 on the top of the keyboard and then
9. You will be prompted to enter the Administrator password. Press Enter if no password was set.
10. Perform a disk check:

chkdsk /p
fixboot

11. Type exit to restart the computer.
12. As soon as the computer starts hit F8 every second to bring up the Advanced Options Menu.
13. Choose the Last Known Good Configuration.
14. If these steps didn’t resolve the issue go back in Recovery Console.



B. Perform the System Restore
Inside the Recovery Console type the following commands to change the directory to the system restore directory:

cd \
cd system~1


If you get an Access Denied error:click here
If you don’t get an Access Denied error :

cd _resto~1



If there is no _resto~1 folder or if there are no restore points inside it:click here

If the _resto~1 folder exists, inside it there are several folders named RP1, RP2. These are restore points. RP1 is the oldest restore point. You can use

dir


to view what RP folders are available. If no restore points are available click here. Otherwise choose the most convenient RP folder. Supposing we have RP3 available let’s type in:

cd rp3



Change the directory to snapshot:

cd snapshot


Restore the main registry branches. If you are being asked if you want to overwrite type in y to agree.

copy _registry_machine_system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy _registry_machine_software c:\windows\system32\config\software

The following commands are most of the time optional however the process might not work if they are not executed

copy _registry_machine_security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy _registry_machine_sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy _registry_user_.default c:\windows\system32\config\default



Type exit to reboot the system. Start the computer normally

Based on:
The support.microsoft.com article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q307545&ID=KB;EN-US;Q307545

The icompute.info article:
http://www.icompute.info/System_restore_from_xp_cd.htm

Posted under Microsoft

How to Grab All Text After The Last Occurence Using Excel

In a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet cell one can use a custom function to effectively grab all test after the final (last) occurrence of a particular character or string. This is accomplished by simply creating a Custom Function and then using that function in a cell formula. Following is the code and instructions for how to create and then implement the function.


Function PullAfterLast(rCell As Range, strLast As String)
PullAfterLast = Mid(rCell, InStrRev(rCell, strLast) + 1, 256)
End Function

  1. Highlight the above code, and copy it to the clipboard by pressing CTRL-C, or by right-clicking on the text and on the resulting popup window left-clicking on Copy.
  2. Open Microsoft Excel (or proceed to step 2 if you prefer to open Excel by clicking  the desired existing .xls file directly.).
  3. Open the workbook you wish to use the function with, or create a new workbook.
  4. Open the Visual Basic Editor window by pressing ALT-F11 on the keyboard, or clicking Tools > Macros > Visual Basic Editor
  5. Insert a new module by right-clicking on ThisWorkbook > Insert > Module or on the toolbar clicking Insert > Module
  6. Paste the clipboard contents (which is the code above this numbered procedure) into the code window by pressing CTRL-V, or by right-clicking in the code window and on the popup menu clicking on Paste, or by clicking the menu toolbar on Edit and clicking on Paste.
  7. Close the Visual Basic Editor by presing CTRL-Q, or by clicking File on the menu toolbar and then clicking Close and Return to Microsoft Excel.

The custom user defined function is now available to be used in the formulas of cells. To use it, the following syntax format is used in the cell’s formula:

=PullAfterLast(A1,"yourstring")

Of course, replace yourstring with the appropriate character or string.

This info was combined from ozgrid.com article about how to make custom functions easily, and vertex42.com article where Dave Hawley gave the universe this function’s code, many thanks!

Posted under Excel, Microsoft, Office

How to Delete Returns in Excel

The pesky carraige return and new line characters, while providing a way to present text for human viewing, are not always desirable when working in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.org.

In Excel, a bit of code provided by Ivan Moala on mrexcel.com, works wonders. Here is the code:


'Created by Chip Pearson
'Cleans up data by removing tabs and carriage returns in worksheet cells.
Sub CleanUp()
Dim TheCell As Range
For Each TheCell In ActiveSheet.UsedRange
With TheCell
If .HasFormula = False Then
.Value = Application.WorksheetFunction.Clean(.Value)
End If
End With
Next TheCell
End Sub

Here’s how to use it:

  • In Excel click Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor (or just hit Alt-F11)
  • In the top-left pane under the Project heading, double-click the name of the sheet you want to strip all the newlines and carriage returns from.
  • In the window that pops up, paste the code above into the empty box under where you see General and Declarations.
  • Run the macro by clicking the “play” button above, or hit F5

Warning: make a backup copy of your Excel workbook before performing the above procedure.

Posted under Excel, Microsoft, Uncategorized

How to Select First Last or Range of Records in MySQL Table

When using MySQL, and wanting to retrieve the first n records from a table, one can use the LIMIT function. It can also be used to grab a range of records, not just a series starting with the first record. Use as follows:

SELECT * FROM yourtable LIMIT yourlowlimit,yourhighlimit;

This will return all rows between the number yourlowlimit and yourhighlimit inclusive.

e.g. SELECT FROM users LIMIT 20,50
will return the rows 20, 21, 22,…, 49, 50

Thanks to dmxzone.com

Posted under Freeware, MySQL

This post was written by Content Curator on November 16, 2009

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How to Delete Records in PHP using MySQL

The code in the HTML/PHP markup would look something like:

<?php mysql_query("DELETE FROM yourtable WHERE yourfield='yourvalue' ")
or die(mysql_error()); ?>

This code deletes any record from the table named “yourtable” when that record’s field named “yourfield” is identically equal to “yourvalue”. The names of these objects will, of course, be replaced by the unique names that your set up uses.

Source: tizag.com – excellent tutorials on all kinds of coding, programming, and other technical stuff.

Posted under Freeware, MySQL, WebDev

This post was written by Content Curator on November 16, 2009

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