Windows 95 crash

I have a Windows 95 box that upon boot gives me a message stating that the registry is bad and I need to restore the registry from a back-up copy. It gives me a button in the window to restore it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. I need the data on this system so reformatting isn’t an option. I can’t start in safe mode but I can get to a DOS prompt. Any help is most appreciated. Thanks in advance!!!