Major catostrophe - need help!

Major catastrophe - need help!

I have OSX 10.4.9 and loaded build 3188. I then loaded up Vista Home Premium and a ton of Windows programs. This evening when I tried to start Vista, it complains that Windows failed to start due to:

File: \Windows\system32\config\system

Status: 0xc0000225

Info: Windows failed to load because the system registry file is missing, or corrupt.

Great! So I reboot with the Vista CD in the drive and Windows doesn't seem to see it. It tells me I need to insert the Vista DVD and reboot and then click "Repair your computer"

The problem is that I am stuck in an endless loop and never get to this point.

Can anyone offer any suggestions? I click on the CDROM icon at the bottom left of the Parallels window and it reports that I am connected to the default CD/DVD ROM. It seems that when I restart the VM, it tries to boot from the hard drive. It would seem I need to boot from the CDROM/DVD in order to get to the "Repair your computer" option.

 

I can't offer advice on fixing the problem with Windows, but if you edit your virtual machine, click on booting (from the top options tab) choose to boot from CD-ROM first.

 

Quick update - I edited my VM and chose to swap the HD and CDROM so that it would boot from the CDROM. When it boots, I was able to run the repair procedure. It did this and then I swapped back and booted from the HD with no change - still getting the registry corruption message. I then tried to install a fresh copy of Vista over the existing damaged one and it wouldn't let me run an Upgrade - only a clean install (thanks MSFT).

I have pretty much run out of ideas.

Parallel's support or anyone else - help!!

 

MS doesnt allow to run vista home in virtual enviroment. You need Vista Ultimate or Business.

Best regards,
mike

 

Is this going to be your final answer? It has been running great for the past month.

How can I go about fixing this?

 

You didn't expect a software company to help you violate another software company's EULA did you?

 

I don't see how this is a major catastrophe. Just create a new VM, install Windows Vista (preferably Ultimate), connect the old disk image as a second hard disk and install your applications again.

 

No, I didn't. Heck, I'm happy to pay an extra $100 to upgrade to Business, Ultimate, whatever. What I don't want to do is spend another week installing and configuring all of my applications. For all I know, this is some bug in Parallels that will happen again. All I know is that I have tried nearly everything and can't get Vista to boot. Any suggestions on how to fix this would be extremely appreciated.

 

While this possible bug gets ironed out, you could...
1) Just use Windows XP instead
2) Back up the .hdd of the VM routinely