Are you not able to log into your system? Is this happening even though you are using the correct credentials? If the answer to these questions is YES, then there are chances that there are some problems with the Windows Registry. It could happen because of many reasons such as virus infections, power outages, corrupt operating system, etc. In such cases, you can perform in-place methods to recover the system. If you are not able to do so, then you should use a third-party file recovery software to perform file recovery of the inaccessible data.

Consider a scenario wherein you are using Windows Server 2003 at your office. When you start the system, you provide the user name and password and press the Enter key to enter the system. However, you are unable to log-into the system despite entering correct username and password. In addition, you try to enter the system via Safe Mode as well but still not able to log-in.

Cause:

This erroneous situation occurs when the Winlogon service attempts to load the Windows default shell (explorer.exe) and user shell (userinit.exe) from registry. However, the service is unable to find the following registry as it is missing or corrupted.

“HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon”

Resolution:

To access the system again, you should modify the values of the specific registry. To do this, you should perform the following steps:

  • Start and log on to another system in the network.

  • Click Start | Run and type Regedit and press the Enter key.

  • Select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry.

  • Click File | Connect Remote Registry.

  • Enter the computer name, that is, your system name.

  • Browse to the following location in registry of the infected computer

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

  • Edit the following two values as shown:

Shell=explorer.exe

Userinit = x:\windows\system32\userinit.exe

  • Exit Registry.

  • Restart the problem computer. Now, you would be able to successfully log into the computer.

However, if you are still not able to access the computer then you should reinstall the operating system. But, that would mean losing the valuable data. In such cases, you should use a third-party file recovery software to recover the inaccessible data. Such file recovery tools are read-only in nature that do not overwrite the existing data while scanning the storage media.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a file recovery software that enables you to recover lost, deleted, or formatted files and folders from inaccessible drives. This file recovery utility recovers data from various file systems such as FAT, NTFS, and exFAT. It is designed to recover more than 185 different file types from various storage media such as hard drives, pen drives, iPods, etc. This file recovery tool is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.