[johnnymorales]

Had same issue with my wife's computer several months ago and was able to reinstall windows. Now my computer has blue screened - I attempted to reinstall windows by setting the BIOS to boot from the CD. I get to the setup/repair screen and hit set-up and F8 to agree to the terms and then the blue screen comes up saying something about my registry and a hive.

Any advice on how to reformat/reinstall windows would be very appreciated! thanks in advance!

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Any suggestions?

[johnnymorales]

Any suggestions?

[Burton1]

Their going to want the exact error so i suggest reboot and right down the errors.

[wannabe1]

Hello johnnymorales...

Have a look at this Guide for a Clean Install of XP.

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 10 February 2006 - 08:43 AM.

[johnnymorales]

Thanks! Before I reformat - the error is below - can it be fixed without reinstalling Windows? What causes this error?

Stop: C0000218 (Registry File Failure)
The registry cannot load the hive file: \systemroom\system32\config\software

[wannabe1]

As a matter of fact....Have a look at This Procedure.

wannabe1

[johnnymorales]

Thanks! I tried that but when I click "1" and hit enter to start the recovery panel I get another blue screen preventing me from accessing the recovery panel. The blue screen I get when I try to access the recovery panel (or to re-install Windows) is a different one. It says "registry error" followed by something about if you've installed new hardware... and then says "STOP: 0X00000051 0X00000003 0x00000000 0xE10EC000.

Edited by johnnymorales, 11 February 2006 - 11:51 AM.

[wannabe1]

Can you boot into Safe Mode Options by tapping the F8 key during the boot sequence? If you can get to the Options Screen, choose the option for "Last known good configuration".

Let me know how it goes...

wannabe1

[johnnymorales]

I got the same Registry File Failure message along with the blue screen. What confuses me is that it won't even let me reinstall Windows.

[wannabe1]

What confuses me is that it won't even let me reinstall Windows.

We can get it to do a clean install if it comes to that (and it appears that it has). I always like to see if we can get things going without losing your data...

You will need a Win98SE Startup diskette. Download this to your desktop, double-click the downloaded file and put a floppy disk in the floppy drive when prompted to do so.

Let me know when you have the startup disk ready and we'll get you going.

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 11 February 2006 - 12:46 PM.

[johnnymorales]

Okay - I've made the disk - what are my next steps? Also - is there any way for me to recover any of the files on the computer prior to reformatting?

[wannabe1]

The only way that the files on that drive might be recovered is by setting the drive up as a slave drive on another machine and try to move them to the master drive or removable media on that machine. Or...you can pick up a new hard drive, set it up as the master on your machine, install XP on that drive, slave your current drive, and move your files to the new drive.

The only repairs I am aware of for this issue is to do the repair installation (tried and failed) or to replace the registry hive (also tried and failed). That leaves us with the clean install option.

Your call....

wannabe1

[johnnymorales]

I'll do the clean install - I'll pull the files I need from my other computer first though. Can you please provide me with the steps or a link to the steps for a clean install. Thanks again for all of your help!

[gerryf]

Set your boot order in bios to Floppy, cd, harddrive

Boot with the above download bootdisk

You do not need CD-rom access at the moment, so boot without cd-rom at the menu

at the prompt, type
fdisk
<enter>

select delect NON-DOS partition
Select your partition
delete it

remove the floppy drive, insert the windows xp cd

follow the windows setup instructions

[wannabe1]

This is a Good Guide for the procedure.

wannabe1