can't even open reset file permissions

Hello.
I'm new to Major geeks and I'm not much of a geek... I recently ran a Windows repair process on an oldish Windows XP box which no longer started up. A long process of using DOS style commands to replace sam, security, software, config and system with copies from c:\windows\repair.
Worked fine in the sense that Windows now opens correctly EXCEPT that I no longer have any access to anything.
It seems to me that what has happened is that all the files are maybe on read only or hidden or both...
I've tried changing the ATTRIB by booting in safe mode with the dos command prompt. I don't seem to have enought rights to change the attributes.
I downloaded the Majorgeeks program to reset file permissions but although I can see it on the USB stick, I can't even open that.
Anyone know a workaround or maybe which of the sam, security, software, config and system I could maybe recopy back into windows\system32 to reestablish my rights...
Any help gratefully accepted
All the best
Keith

 

Thats the risk you run with a manual registry replacement.

There are four parts of KB307545, and if you don't run all, you run into this issue, amongst others:

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

 

Thanks I'll look into that.
I wasn't in the registry itself - the whole process was done by commands like
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
... all copied from the Windows help file...

 

That's exactly the Microsoft article I read but I only got as far as the end of part 1 since I didn't have access to Windows explorer to start the second phase. I'll try the alternative methods for accessing System Volume Information and see how I get on
many thanks
Keith

 

The article had you back up your existing registry to a new location and then replace it with a fresh generic WinXP registry, then reboot. You should now be able to boot WinXP and run Explorer Shell and Explorer file manager.
What exactly happened at the end of Part 1, when you reboot the computer?
Do you get any error messages?
Are you able to boot into Safe Mode? If so, are you able to access Windows Explorer from there?
Are you able to boot Win XP but can't open the Explorer file manager?
Does the system hang and if so, where in the boot process does it hang?

If you legitimately cannot boot Win XP with a fresh registry, then you may well have computer problems that extend beyond the registry (corrupted system files, malware, hardware failure, etc.)