Program Files Folder Mixup; XP Won't Boot

[Piyono]

Last time I reformatted my sister's laptop (just over a year ago) I tried a novel partitioning method I read about somewhere online. It involves creating separate partitions for system, swap and programs (and I make on for data, too). It's a bit convoluted to set up but you end up with a partition structure like this:
[primary(system)] [extended(swap)(programs)(data)].

The folder 'C:\Program Files' is mapped to the programs partition. It's not for everyone but I thought I'd try it out for kicks. It worked well until a couple of weeks ago, when my sister reported that her programs had "disappeared". I finally got around to looking at the laptop today and, sure enough, the C:\Program Files folder was now unmapped from the programs partition and remapped to its default location on the system partition. It wouldn't have been too much trouble for me to set it back except for the fact that in XP a partition can be mapped only to an empty folder, and the Program Files folder had stuff in it.

I'm not at home so I don't have all my tools at my disposal, although I did bring with me a selection of utility CDs.

Long story short, I restored the Program Files folder mapping in a roundabout manner and messed something up in the process (at one point I booted Windows with nothing in the Program Files folder. It hung at the XP splash screen). Windows now boots up only in Safe Mode. Booting normally results in a hang at the "Windows is starting up" screen. I enabled boot logging and checked the log. Nothing telling.

I suspect registry damage but I don't know where it might be.

Any ideas?

Piyono

 

[Piyono]

I took the machine back in time with a restore point. Far back as I could go was about two months. When the machine came to again the drive map was broken again, and since it was 4 am I was broken, too, so I went to bed.

Me and my narrative.

Piyono

 

[ddrueding]

My only thought would be that if it had failed to detect the Program Files partition and defaulted, the must be a mess of registry keys that it autogenerated for the default location.

 

[P5-133XL]

I don't hold any great hope for solving this problem. I even have doubts that an inplace reinstall would fix it because of the registry issues (It normally keeps non-HW registry entries alone). It is a try, and it is better than just starting over

I really don't know the registry entries that to be fixed. So while I would like to help, I just don't know enough to be useful.

Sorry

 

[mubs]

I have almost always had the swap file in its own separate partition, but have been too chicken to orphan the Program Files folder away from it's mother (system partition), fearing this kind of thing would happen.