[SOLVED] Bricked Windows. How to make changes to System32 with a boot drive?

[TehPenguin]

Hey!

I did this and now my PC won't boot. Not even into safe mode. It worked a couple of months ago and since I had the same issue (overclock not working) I just went ahead and did it again.

What tools do I need to boot from the USB drive and then overwrite the change I made with a backup? The Ubuntu drive I made allows me to use the PC and access the system32 folder but I can't make changes to it.

I tried AiO-SRT but I can't make it work. In the boot menu I can either choose the tool or to check if my drives are in tact and when I chose the tool nothing happens. The screen goes black. Could not find anything else of the sort.

What could've been a mistake is that I made that change right after Windows finished updating so it could be that windows bricked my PC but for now I want to revert the change I made to be sure.

 

[USAFRet]

This is one of the many reasons you always need a true recoverable full drive backup.
I won't even say "especially when mucking around in System32", because you always need one no matter what you are doing.

 

[TehPenguin]

This is one of the many reasons you always need a true recoverable full drive backup.
I won't even say "especially when mucking around in System32", because you always need one no matter what you are doing.

Yeah I regret saving that for later. Was on my todo list for longer than I am willing to admit. Fortunately I do have 2 backups of all the important files but I would prefer not to do a clean windows install.

 

[USAFRet]

Never having to backdoor my way into a "fix" of what exists in /System32/, I can't suggest a way forward.

But take this as a heads up to institute an automated backup routine.
I can recover the entirety of my system, or each individual drive, or any individual file/folder, exactly as it was early this morning. Or any day in the last month.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[TehPenguin]

Never having to backdoor my way into a "fix" of what exists in /System32/, I can't suggest a way forward.

But take this as a heads up to institute an automated backup routine.
I can recover the entirety of my system, or each individual drive, or any individual file/folder, exactly as it was early this morning. Or any day in the last month.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

I made a backup of the .dll that I replaced so what I hope for is a way to access the system32 folder with admin rights and replace it once again. I'm just unsure what tools to use since I never encoutered something like this before.

 

[TehPenguin]

https://www.hirensbootcd.org/ has done the job if anyone happens to do something as stupid in the future.