How to get out of DD11 infinite boot loop? (specified file doesn't exist)
How do I get out of this infinite boot loop?
I just updated from the previous DD11 build to build 2121. I use DD11 primarily to copy entire NTFS partitions to backup disks. I started it from within Windows XP/SP3, which usually works perfectly for me...
Everything worked fine when it didn't need to reboot to back up those partitions it could process that way, but when I asked it to backup the boot partition, it had to reboot, and that's when it eventually got stuck in the current infinite boot loop.
What's now happening is this (starting from within the boot loop):
(1): I press Enter (or press the reset button) and up comes the usual Windows startup screen with the usual blue Cylon cyclops.
(2) Then the Windows blue screen comes up announcing the name and the build.
(3): About one minute later, it reports (and below I've included only the text, not the hex codes):
An error occurred
Error while loading configuration file.
SubError: The specified file does not exist.
Press <Enter> to reboot
(4): Go to (1)
Now, I might know what happened to the configuration file. I have a security clean-up tool that normally runs just before rebooting that deletes temp files and the like (I forgot to disable it). So, if the file it's looking for was a temp file or existed in a folder that was marked for cleaning, that might explain why it can no longer be found.
But that is no help in stopping this infinite loop! What can I do to get out of this?
I've tried interrupting the loop by booting from CD (in this case, a DD10 bootable media CD), but that makes no difference
Thanks!
I have developed this problem on a Vista machine but the registry doesn't have the entry listed above.
Acronis support is awful.
Paul:
Try looking in ControlSet 001 instead of CurrentControlSet:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\bootexecute
While booting up using the windows disk (and using the repair mode) regedit did not find the bootexecute entry. I finally figured out that if I started the windows installation, installed the drive for the drive controller, and then cancelled the installation, I could use the repair mode command prompt to delete the autorun.exe file. I could then reboot into windows normally. Once I rebooted into Windows regedit found the bootexecute entry. All is well.
Paul:
Glad that you got it sorted out.
You may have had problems locating the correct entry if you simply started regedit in the recovery environment. When you do that, you are viewing the registry of Windows Recovery Environment; not of the Windows installation on your disk. To edit the registry of your installed Windows system you need to mount the System registry hive first, and then edit that hive. See the link in reply #1 for details about how to do this.