Noodlebaking with Regedit!

I install exactly the same Ghost image of a system core onto two machines. I
have a Run-Once.bat file to create the registry from a REG file at first boot
after restoring the image, with an Autoexec line REGEDIT /C W98_CORE.REG

In one machine this creates SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT, in the other it doesn't!
Why? In both cases, REGEDIT.EXE reports 100% success. All other file accesses
appear to work as anyone with twenty years of DOS experience would expect. I
searched for SYSTEM.DAT using ATTRIB /S SYSTEM.* in the root of C because
that WILL find it, absolutely, if it's anywhere on that drive. All it found
was SYSTEM.INI and SYSTEM.DRV.

I wish I had oodles of cash prizes to give away because this one really IS a
three-pipe noodlebaker. Does anyone know the answer?