Cymbidiums can take a lot of abuse and still recover.
Pull off any roots that are soft and obviously dead. Hopefully there are
a few live roots left. It may not start growing new roots until it
starts growing new leaves. You are doing the right thing in repotting
them into the right kind of potting material.

Steve

caparazon wrote:
Hello,
I am new to this forum, I live in Southern Spain, and the reason for me
to register and intervene is to ask for some help regarding the
following:
I have found two Cymbidium plants at a relative's house. They were pot
planted into a heavily wet compost for normal plants (by then I knew
that Orchids cannot stand normal compost and that they are potted in
fir bark soils mixtures or similar). Therefore a have repotted them
into an appropiate soil in two pots.
The two plants do not have flowers at the moment and are showing green
well formed top to bottom leaves that seem to indicate that they are
reletively healthy...but when it came for me to inspect the roots, I
found out that , they were a complete disaster, specially in one of
them: most of the roots destroyed, very white, and easy to break when
they are simply touched. Is there any method to save this plants?