urgent help. win 2k without profiles

[fetuchin]

last night, trying to solve another problem (excesive time for first-time reading of my hard disks) and don't ask me why or how, I tried to left a single allowed user to access hard disks, as i am the only user. So i erased administrator (i have a diferent user name) thinking that with all permissions allowed, my user would be administrator as well, but... i'm afraid i'm not, 'cause i have not been able to start win2k pro any more. no matter which option i choose after f8 booting, it ends up in a console screen telling me that autochk is not found and is going to be skipped and then a blue screen in which the only understandable portion to me refers to profile manager.
what can i do? i've even tried to use the installation diskettes to restore a previous installation but... same end.
Am i going to have to re-install win 2k?
if so, is it going to keep my old programs and configuration?
if not, can i try to install it on a secondary hard disk (have two) to start from it and try to restore installation from it as well?
last but not least, is there a way to access an ntfs disk from dos?
help me please.

 

[fetuchin]

yes i know i've been a stupid doing so, but some of my work files have not been backuped yet and there they are waiting for me to access them, please be commiserate to a poor pig-handed newbie!

 

[fetuchin]

help

 

[fetuchin]

anybody out there? come on, need desperately some help and chances are less and less for me to save my beloved work. Can't believe anybody knows it

 

[Psychoholic]

Sorry, but if you removed all accounts on the computer like you say I think you're pretty much SOL. Did you make any backups???

 

[Techwhore]

It was my understanding that not only could u NOT disable the Administrator account but u could NOT delete it... oh well. Anyway, the install is FUBAR, what you can do is install it on another disk and access your data from there and maybe even attempt to recover that install.

There is a way to read NTFS through DOS, go here and get NTFS DOS, it's a good little program.

EDIT: Lesson one as an NT Administrator, NEVER delete accounts. Always disable them, not only will that prevent an instance like this, but will also save you time when new people come to the system, just change username/password and you're set.

 

[fetuchin]

perhaps it's as silly as it seems, but i did not delete it from profile manager, instead i opened hard disk properties and under the security tab i removed the administrator user, leaving mine as the only one, then restart and begin my "adventure".
is not there a way to rebuild profiles from outside, i mean, by deleting or overwriting any file?
i think that some other threads mentioned something like that (but, as you can see i'm not a skilled win2k user so i may be wrong)
anyway thanx in advance

 

[Techwhore]

Did you say you tried the recovery options? If so, Fast Repair didn't work?

All the account permissions are kept in the registry, it's not a matter of just copying files from somewhere else, it's a matter of redefining these settings. This wouldn't be easy, reinstalling is probably the best option, that is of course if fast repair didn't/doesn't work.

If you have an ERD WITH THE REGISTRY BACKED UP, you may be able to use that to fix the problem. But unlike NT4, the registry is only backed up to an ERD if selected.

If you can get to the recovery console under repair options, u'll be brought to a command line. Here you might be able to restore your registry to a previously known good one. I forgot the command for that though 😱, so if someone else knows it please post it.

 

[Psychoholic]

<< perhaps it's as silly as it seems, but i did not delete it from profile manager, instead i opened hard disk properties and under the security tab i removed the administrator user, leaving mine as the only one, then restart and begin my &quot;adventure&quot;. >>


Okay, that's what I thought. Techwhore had me questioning what I read into your question. If you've removed Administrator from the security tab a side-by-side install to recover information on your botched install will not work either. In your case it sounds like the profile is still there you've just prevented access to any files on the hard drive.

Like I said I hope you have backups, now is the time to get them ready.

 

[fetuchin]

right i got to that command line, but did not know what the heck to do but listing files, so i ended up restarting once again.
does anybdy know that command-line-level order or sentence?

 

[Techwhore]

I just paid a visit to the M$ site and did a quick search.

The command to restore the registry is &quot;regrest&quot;, but i'm not sure if it is only for registries you've saved and wish to restore or if it'll do old registries the system has backed up. They made it even sound like it was an optional component, so it may not even be installed.

I also came across some stuff on the &quot;regedit&quot; command. It has the abiilty to restore registries as well and should work under the recovery console. The only thing with this is, they say you need to be logged in as administrator in order to access this. If i recall correctly, there's no authentication process when using the recovery console from the CD, so unless you have the console installed as a startup option, u may be out of luck.

To tell you the truth, i'm not even so sure this will work anymore. It's worth a try though.

 

[fetuchin]

thanx techwhore!
i'll give it a try for sure.
I remember that before getting to that command line i was asked an administrator password.
As i had left it blank when i clean-installed, i just pressed enter and that lead me to the forementioned command line.
let's hope it works. Anyway i won't be able to give it a try till tonight.
I'll let you know if i can get there.

any other advice would be admited. I'll continue in here for an hour or so.