The side effect I got from playing with the auto-start entries in the registry

Well, I needed to restart my computer, so I did. Next thing I knew, after it loaded up my old copy of XP, it immediately restarted. I tried disabling after system failure, and that`s when I realized I accidentally turned off the windows logon process from automatically starting. Stupid me. What also sucks is that I don`t have any backups of my data, and I really don`t want to have to get to get 30k+ exp and level 2 all over again, as well as all the songs I made for my extended play album currently on itunes, and the album I was working on. I`m typing this right now on my very shiny hp lappie, but I don`t think it`s set to play any first person shooters. Any idea how I can either backup my et data and my albums(only things I really care about on my comp), or modify the registry from the recovery console or something like that?

Yeah man,

When you start up your computer you'll get that manufactorer logo and right after that(maybee even before it passes, PRESS F8 LIKE A FKING MAD MAN!!!!

That'll allow you to boot in safe mode with networking (or just plain old safemode) or work in the lasts known configuration.

If I am not mistaken, when you do something like tinker with the registry, restart your computer, and fail. The last known configuration option restores the last good copy of the registry (probably from the time before last you shut down your computer).

After you restart it a couple of times though, the good copy of the registry is gone for good.

Worst comes to worst, you can download a boot disc, burn it to a disc, and copy your data to a flash drive, external drive, dvds, or something.

Well, looks like i`m in the worst case scenerio. So, can you explain that boot disc thing a bit more in detail?

WAIT! You said Windows xp right?

This is what you do, as long as you have about 6gb of free space you can install another copy of windows xp on your computer without wiping your data out, in other words, dual boot

Let me pull out my cd and I'll make a step by step guide for ya
It should only take 5 min or so for me to make and about 1 hour for you to do, most of which you don't have to do anything.

So I dual boot 2 copies of XP? That sounds crazy enough to work, my man. Thanks in advance.

Aight

First insert your copy of Windows Xp into your computer.
Next, restart your computer press either F10, F12, or ESC, whichever one your computer says will let do something with the word BOOT in it.
Then navigate with your arrow keys to cd drive or dvd drive and hit enter.
Press any key to continue when the message that says press any key to continue pops up.
Wait about 1 min or so, until the Welcome to Setup screen comes up, press enter, F8, ESC, enter, C, Select Leave the current file system intact <no changes>, ESC (escape), then type in WINDOWS 2, press enter.
Now just wait and supply any information when asked
When thats all done you can make a new user account and will have access to all your data again however, this is a fresh installation of windows so you won't have all your favorite apps yet :S

When its all done back up your data!!!!!!!!!!!!! then try tinkering with the registry again and get the origonal version of windows to work again.

Oh snap. My installation of XP came with the PC, so I might have to turn to desperate measures for that idea...*cough*torrent*cough*

What was that?

While your at it <cough>grab<cough> hirens boot disc, if I'm not mistaken that includes a remote registry editor (remote as in not currently logged into your account I think).

Holy crap, that is quite an impressive array of tools. But I don`t see any download link for an iso or etc so I can burn it onto a CD.

That's the beautyt of torrenting and imgburn

Hey, I swear there was a system32 in my original WINDOWS folder. Do you think it would be okay to copy my new system32 and paste it into my old WINDOWS folder?