Running a program and the registry corrupted

[eug1077]

Hi everyone,

I've been using virtual box for a few months. Today, I was running a program on Matlab and out of no where I was prompted with a message to use checkdisk utility because one of the files in the registry is corrupted. I tried to start windows again on virtual box and I get the message that the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

and I can attempt to repair the file by starting windows with the original cd rom. I put in the cd rom, and pressed enter to install but there is no option to recover the virtual hardrive. Does this mean all is lost or is there a way to do the automatic recovery tool even though my host is a mac and I have no floppy drive? Also, is there any way of recovering a corrupt .vdi file, it is really important that I do not lose all those files.

Thanks,
Eric

[Perryg]

Worst case, you can install a new instance of the Windows guest.
Once done you can mount the corrupt one as a second drive and you should be able to recover your data.

Next you need to find out what is causing the original problem. Look for viruses or even a failing hard drive. Registry corruption usually happens for a reason.

[eug1077]

thanks perry, I tried that, but it seems even if it is the secondary drive, if you try to open it it says damaged and cannot be opened

[Perryg]

If you have backed up the original file so we do not cause it damage, you can go ahead and try to install XP back over the original. It should ask if you want to repair somewhere during the install.
If not then you could tell it to use a different place on the drive to install to. like Win instead of Windows. Then see if you can recover the files.
Also if the drive is this bad it may be totally unrecoverable, I don't know any magic thing for this, but as long as you have the backup nothing will be hurt.

[mpack]

thanks perry, I tried that, but it seems even if it is the secondary drive, if you try to open it it says damaged and cannot be opened

Did you run chkdsk, as the error message said?

If you haven't done it yet, boot up another XP or later VM which has the bad disk attached as a secondary drive. Open a command prompt window and at the prompt type "chkdsk /f /v e:" (replace "e:" with the actual drive letter of the secondary drive). In my experience chkdsk does a pretty good job of fixing some pretty serious filesystem errors, however it can't always recover damaged files, so the next thing may well be the system restore route. This MS article may also contain relevant information (the advice is for XP, but I'm sure Win2k8 will be similar).