Anyone know how to fix a broken Windows installation on a Macbook?

[adhutton]

Our Deputy Head's wife has a MacBook which has both the Mac operating system and a Windows Operating system (XP I think).

The Windows part is broken - damaged registry I suspect:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM - missing or corrupt.

I can start the Mac operating system, but cannot do anything with the Windows one and the machine is set to boot to the Windows partition as default.

You could write what I know about Macs on a grain of rice.....but Windows I can usually fix

Any ideas people about how I can repair the Windows side of things....bearing in mind that I don't seem able to boot to a CD or even get a command prompt???

All help/suggestions welcomed.

Cheers - Andrew

[jwpercival]

Hi Andrew,

If you hold down the Option / Alt key as soon as the Mac is turned on you should be able to choose the partition you want to boot from. If you choose the Windows partition and then hold down F8 you should be able to get to grips with the Windows issues either with a Safe Boot or going straight to the command line.

If you have a bootable Windows disk that'll show up too when you hold down the Option key at startup.

Good luck!

[adhutton]

Hi Andrew,

If you hold down the Option / Alt key as soon as the Mac is turned on you should be able to choose the partition you want to boot from. If you choose the Windows partition and then hold down F8 you should be able to get to grips with the Windows issues either with a Safe Boot or going straight to the command line.

If you have a bootable Windows disk that'll show up too when you hold down the Option key at startup.

Good luck!

I have tried your suggestions and I did get a bit further...but the macBook cannot see the Windows CD and it just spits it out of the DVD drive after a few seconds!

Do I need a 'special' copy of Windows install cd for a Mac or just the usual install disk?

Andrew

[FN-GM]

Do I need a 'special' copy of Windows install cd for a Mac or just the usual install disk?

Just the usual one will do it

[HodgeHi]

Put the disc in and hold down the c key on start up. It should also boot from the cd in this way.

[mac_shinobi]

Our Deputy Head's wife has a MacBook which has both the Mac operating system and a Windows Operating system (XP I think).

The Windows part is broken - damaged registry I suspect:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM - missing or corrupt.

I can start the Mac operating system, but cannot do anything with the Windows one and the machine is set to boot to the Windows partition as default.

You could write what I know about Macs on a grain of rice.....but Windows I can usually fix

Any ideas people about how I can repair the Windows side of things....bearing in mind that I don't seem able to boot to a CD or even get a command prompt???

All help/suggestions welcomed.

Cheers - Andrew

If this is snow leopard which should support reading and writing to and from NTFS partitions you can make a backup of the system file in that directory under apples operating system, then go to the system volume information or recovery folder(s) ( one or the other ) and copy the backed up system file over into the relevant directory ( \windows\system32\config ) ensuring it is literally named SYSTEM or system without anything pre fixed.

Then reboot and try and boot into windows.

If you are getting the file from the system_volume_information directory , you will need to take owner ship or add yourself and give your own admin account full access rights to the folder which should hopefully trickle down to sub folders

Go into the restore directory ( normally named _restore ) --> Sort it into details view so you can see date / time column, go into the directory that is the latest or nearer the latest one, then go into the snapshort directory

You should now see all of the files named something along the lines of

_Registry_Machine_Sam

The one you are after seeing as it states system is :

_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM

You would copy this file to the \windows\system32\config directory and rename it to just system

If you have issues with writing or reading to and from an NTFS partition you can install NTFS 3G , reboot and go back into OS X ( apples OS ) and then do the above.

Pretty much following the MS KB when you get these sorts of issues except you are obviously doing it manually through OS X instead of using a batch file to do all the deleting / copying etc

How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting

More or less what I explained above but without doing a snapshot at the end, which you can do

If you're still stuck drop me a pm or I can try and ellaborate on the above if needed

I normally do this for any of the similar errors but I have a hard drive kit and attach the laptop hard drive to another computer and do this, although the mac line of laptops hard drives are a lot trickier to get out of the laptop so easier to do the above

[SYNACK]

If this is snow leopard which should support reading and writing to and from NTFS partitions you can make a backup of the system file in that directory under apples operating system, then go to the system volume information or recovery folder(s) ( one or the other ) and copy the backed up system file over into the relevant directory ( \windows\system32\config ) ensuring it is literally named SYSTEM or system without anything pre fixed.

Then reboot and try and boot into windows.

If you are getting the file from the system_volume_information directory , you will need to take owner ship or add yourself and give your own admin account full access rights to the folder which should hopefully trickle down to sub folders

Go into the restore directory ( normally named _restore ) --> Sort it into details view so you can see date / time column, go into the directory that is the latest or nearer the latest one, then go into the snapshort directory

You should now see all of the files named something along the lines of

_Registry_Machine_Sam

The one you are after seeing as it states system is :

_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM

You would copy this file to the \windows\system32\config directory and rename it to just system

If you have issues with writing or reading to and from an NTFS partition you can install NTFS 3G , reboot and go back into OS X ( apples OS ) and then do the above.

Pretty much following the MS KB when you get these sorts of issues except you are obviously doing it manually through OS X instead of using a batch file to do all the deleting / copying etc

How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting

More or less what I explained above but without doing a snapshot at the end, which you can do

If you're still stuck drop me a pm or I can try and ellaborate on the above if needed

+1 if your getting the config\system error then this is exactly what I'd do.

Vista and 7 both recover from this fault automagicly which may be helpful in prompting an update.

[mac_shinobi]

+1 if your getting the config\system error then this is exactly what I'd do.

Vista and 7 both recover from this fault automagicly which may be helpful in prompting an update.

If I can't reply then am sure synack or anyone else should be able to help

link to nfts 3g ( if synack can confirrm this is the correct one )

http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/

Click on the link that states for Mac ( stable version if its available )

[mac_shinobi]

There are other guides via googling for "snow leopard ntfs write"

Here is the one I normally use as I keep forgetting the commands

Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard - MacRumors Forums

[Arthur]

Link to NTFS-3G

MacFUSE: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23729/macfuse
NTFS-3G: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g

To get the latest version of NTFS-3G for free, it looks like you need to install it via MacPorts...

sudo port install ntfs-3g