The Registry Cannot load the hive...

[HelenaP]

Hello Intelligent ones.

I have a friend's laptop here (it's actually looking like the same pos Dell she gave me to repair two years ago...).

She had said that she thought she had a virus. Erm... I'm it is far worse. She neglected to tell me about this message;

"STOP: c0000218 {Registry file failure}
The registry cannot load the hive {file}:
\SystemRoot\System32\ Config\SOFTWARE
or its log, or alternate.
It is corrupt or absent, or not writable.

Beginning dump of physical memory.
Physical drive dump complete.
Contact system administrator or technical support for further assistance."

Um..I unplugged the damn thing about 4 hours ago. I cannot get it to turn off. I have tried control--> alt--> delete.

Any ideas? I have Krells CD of Happiness somewhere around here, as well as a Windows Professional XP disk...

[ratcat]

I can't help with the hive thingy, but to turn it off, did you hold down the power button until the computer powers down ? (Forced Shutdown)

[HelenaP]

Ya... It finally turned off, and when I restarted, I tried hitting F10 to boot in safe mode. Same message.

I'm thinking I need BIOS help. I have not taken the language course that would include this (yet)...

[rocket357]

registry backups for the win...

If you don't have one of those handy, then you'll likely have to reinstall.

[HelenaP]

Looks like all of System32 files are gone (I swear, this is the same pos she brought me two years ago). I have gotten nothing but the same message (as in my first post) all day.

I can't even get to a screen to reinstall. It will not go into safe mode, safe with prompts, networking, nada.

It's toast. Thanks anyway.

[w31n3r]

sorry to hear about that, guess you're stuck with reinstalling windows.

i'm curious to know (as should you be too) how such a relatively large chunk of data got corrupted? the main worry is that the hard disk is on it's last legs. have you tried chkdsk /r in the recovery console? that little command packs in quite a punch.

you can also use krell's "cd of happiness" to run the hitachi hard diagnostic (full test), which will also cover the chkdsk part to get a clear picture when you're done. just a suggestion since reinstalling windows is just a temp fix till shit hits the fan again in case the hard drive is shot.

[gost]

well i had a old dell laptop as well.(harddrive failed after 2 years)

anyways there is a system restore thing built into the dell systems, but it will delete everything... so go to safemode and backup importants docs.. (pics, bookmarks, passwords, etc)

to use the system restore turn off windows(the OS, not the real windows) --> turn it back up when you see a blue bar with www.dell.com(only for 3 sec) constantly press "Control + F11" --> Click “Restore” , ignore the warning as your pc is already backed up... this will take about 10 min --> click "finish"

system will reboot, then follow the steps that dell tells you(teenager can do it).. it will be back to normal.

now remove all the dum(shareware) apps included by dell (unless your firend is using any)
then apply all the tweeks you know of and then install all the apps your friend installed before and put the backup files where they belong.

^^ perform that if all else fails.

[HelenaP]

...so go to safemode and backup importants docs.. (pics, bookmarks, passwords, etc)

to use the system restore turn off windows(the OS, not the real windows) --> turn it back up when you see a blue bar with www.dell.com(only (http://www.dell.com%28only) for 3 sec) constantly press "Control + F11" --> Click “Restore” , ignore the warning as your pc is already backed up... this will take about 10 min --> click "finish"

system will reboot, then follow the steps that dell tells you(teenager can do it).. it will be back to normal.
...
^^ perform that if all else fails.

OK, well the problem is, I have a blue screen of death with a message. I cannot make it go into safe or any other mode.

I will give the F11 a shot though, in conjunction with trying another idea suggested on my home site (involves slaving the drive in another machine, renaming the windows/system32/config/software to .old and then copying a previous version from the snapshot folder of system restore point).

Thank you very much!

[Feather]

sorry to hear about that, guess you're stuck with reinstalling windows.

i'm curious to know (as should you be too) how such a relatively large chunk of data got corrupted? the main worry is that the hard disk is on it's last legs. have you tried chkdsk /r in the recovery console? that little command packs in quite a punch.

you can also use krell's "cd of happiness" to run the hitachi hard diagnostic (full test), which will also cover the chkdsk part to get a clear picture when you're done. just a suggestion since reinstalling windows is just a temp fix till shit hits the fan again in case the hard drive is shot.

This should be first course of action. but of course you may have to slave it to get past the BSD

OK, well the problem is, I have a blue screen of death with a message. I cannot make it go into safe or any other mode.

I will give the F11 a shot though, in conjunction with trying another idea suggested on my home site (involves slaving the drive in another machine, renaming the windows/system32/config/software to .old and then copying a previous version from the snapshot folder of system restore point).

Thank you very much!

then I would do your own suggestion if the drive turns out to be ok