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#1
Stuck in Startup Repair
Don't know if install is Home or Pro (yet). It's 19041.630. I have an ISO I can use to do a Repair install from but since I can't get the system to boot that is not an option yet.
Found info in the registry, it's Home.
When I try to use Advanced Options, Command Prompt it does not give me any account to login as so I don't have any way to activate the Hidden Administrator account.
I used the direction of Option 5 here: Option Five: Enable or Disable Built-in Administrator in Command Prompt at Boot to supposedly enable the hidden Administrator account at offset 38 of the F key from 15 to 10 (directions say from 11 to 10 but it was originally set to 15). This had no effect as I still get no user account displayed to login as, and yes, I've rebooted many times.
Chkdsk fixed some problems the first time it was run but has been clean on subsequent runs. DISM and SFC using the offline parms have run clean.
Since the original user Maggie is still there and the registry entry that connects that user to it's data in \Users is there and valid, I'm not sure how to proceed.
I'd like to look at the Event Viewer but can't figure out how to do it. I've searched but everything i've found doesn't work or is too old. Supposedly the Event logs were .xml file but that doesn't appear to be true any more, so how to I get them off a non-booting system so I can load them into a working system to look at them?
Also, I've tried deleting \Windows\WinSXS\Cleanup.xml (not there) and Pending.xml (there, deleted) which allowed me to ruin SFC and DISM but got Automatic Repair on next boot anyway.
Any suggestions appreciated.
This is a friends computer so I don't want to reinstall unless there is no alternative. Key right now I think is to be able to read the Event logs.