My older pc with W95 has come to a limited use state. When it boots up it tells me there was a registry/configuration error. If I go to safe mode I get a error accessing system regisrty message. when I click the restore from backup and restart. I then get Windows could not restore your registry.

What can I do to restore the registry. Smart guy I am, I don't have a backup disk, and the original startup/recovery disks are no where to be found. Any suggestions?

Hya Firefoto , welcome to PCHF.

Lets first give this a try. I hope it also works for 95:


How to restore or repair the registry with Windows 98 Registry Checker (ScanReg)


Situation:
You are unable to boot into Windows 98, the system is displaying error messages, or there are other indications that your registry files are corrupted. You want to use the Windows Registry Checker to repair the registry files or replace them with backups.


About ScanReg
The Windows 98 Registry Checker utility has two files: Scanreg.exe and Scanregw.exe. The first is used after starting the computer to an MS-DOS prompt, and the second is used after starting the computer into Windows. These utilities can be used to restore registry backups or to repair the registry.

By default, Windows 98 makes a backup of your registry every time you start your computer. It keeps one backup for each of the last five days the system was successfully started. If your system has a corrupted registry, you may be able to restore a backup that was made before the corruption occurred. Otherwise, you can use Scanreg.exe to attempt to repair the registry files.

How to restore registry backups
Use one of the following methods to restore a backup of the registry.

Since the registry keeps configuration information for your programs and hardware, when you restore a backup you will lose all changes made to your system after the backup was created, which means you may need to reinstall some programs and drivers.

To restore a registry backup from within Windows 98

1. Click Start > Run. The Run dialog box appears.
2. In the Open box, type scanregw.exe and click OK.

To restore a registry backup from MS-DOS mode

1. Restart the system in MS-DOS mode.
   If the system does not automatically start in MS-DOS mode when attempting to boot into Windows 98, hold down Ctrl key during system startup until the Startup Menu displays, and choose "Safe Mode Command Prompt Only" from the Startup Menu.
2. At the C: prompt, type scanreg /restore and press Enter. You do not have to be in the C:\Windows\Command folder to run the command.
3. Choose which backup to restore. You should have a choice of registry backups from the last five days the system successfully booted. You can also restore other backups from either the hard drive or floppy disk. The backups from the last five days will be in the format RB00x.*, where RB stands for Registry Backup, and x is the sequence number of the backup. RB000.cab is the most recent backup.

How to repair the registry

Use one of the following methods to repair the registry.

To repair the registry from within Windows 98

1. Click Start > Run. The Run dialog box appears.
2. In the Open box, type scanregw.exe and click OK.

To repair the registry from MS-DOS mode

1. Restart the system in MS-DOS mode. If the system does not automatically start in MS-DOS mode when attempting to boot into Windows 98, hold down the Ctrl key during bootup until the Startup Menu appears, and choose "Safe Mode Command Prompt Only" from the Startup menu.
2. At the C: prompt, type scanreg and press Enter. You do not have to be in the C:\Windows\Command folder to run the command.
   • If ScanReg is unable to fix the registry problems, or does not detect registry problems, run scanreg /fix
   • If the registry problems are still not resolved, restore a backup of the registry. See the section, How to restore registry backups.

Or you can give this a try , this is also intended for 95 for sure:






Still in trouble? The DOS version of the Registry Editor, regedit.exe, may be able to save your bacon, whether you're operating under Windows 95 or Windows 98. You can solve some Registry problems by exporting the Registry to a text file and then importing it back again.

To export the user.dat portion to text, type a line similar to the following at the DOS prompt: regedit /l:c:\windows\user.dat /e c:\user.txt (your paths and export file name may differ). Press Enter. The /e switch indicates export, and the /l switch specifies the particular portion of the Registry that you're working with (more on this point later). Now rename the existing user.dat file by typing ren user.dat user.bak and pressing Enter.

Finally, to re-create the user.dat file based on the text file you exported, type regedit /l:c:\windows\user.dat /c c:\user.txt (your paths and export file name may differ) and press Enter.

As I'll explain later, Windows 98 users (but no one else) should substitute /r for /l in this command line. In either version of Windows, you'll need to include the /c switch to re-create the Registry from the text file. Now restart Windows and hope that everything is cool.

If the error persists, try the same thing with the system.dat portion of the Registry. Reboot to the Safe Mode Command Prompt, as before. At the DOS prompt, type regedit /l:c:\windows\system.dat /e c:\system.txt (your paths and export file name may differ) and press Enter. Now rename the existing system.dat by typing ren system.dat system.bak and pressing Enter. Finally, to re-create the system.dat file based on the text file you exported, type regedit /l:c:\windows\system.dat /c c:\system.txt (again, your paths and export file name may differ) and press Enter.

I tried the suggestions, but I get the same thing. I tried to type WIN at a c prompt, both c:\ and c:\windows and it tells me the himem.sys is missing. Could that be the problem?

But have you also tried the full commands? i.e: regedit /l:c:\windows\user.dat /e c:\user.txt (changing "user" to youre user name)