Can I get some Computer Tech help Please

[FIREWALL]

Hi All Hope you all can help.

I have a HP Pavilion\ Altec Lansing laptop.

When I go to turn it on I get the Windows blackscreen with the, Start Windows Normallly, Last known Config, ect. ect.

It then goes to the Windows xp with the little lite bar . So far so good. then I get a blue screen with this.

STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The registry cannot load the hive (file)
\SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE
It ic corrupt, absent, or not writable.
Beginng dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator
or technical support group
for further assistance

Then it cycles back thru the same thing over and over.

Any ideas how I can fix this ?

I Thank You all for any help.

Am standing by.

[DeepIron]

Your Windows install is hosed... Try this: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_sys32.htm

Otherwise, reformat your hard drive and re-install Windows... Hope you have/had a backup or your important stuff...

[SUBMAN1]

Try your last known good configuration. The Hive is your registry. A restore point might save you, otherwise, your are completely screwed. Sorry to tell you that.

You might be able to load the Hive offline and re-save it, but good luck!

-S

[SUBMAN1]

One more thought - try fixing data corruption on the driver with a chkdsk /f or /r

I'm guessing the most likely reason however for this failure is likely due to hardware failure on the drive itself. the chkdsk /r option may get it working again. You'll need to do that from a repair recovery screen however.

Modern hard drives of the IDE flavor are designed for cheap manufacture unfortunately. Where SCSI or the older MFM RLL type drives needed to be made perfect, IDE drives are not. Instead IDE drives incorporate what is known as S.M.A.R.T. technology and are designed cheaply with cheap not always perfect platters. What the drive does with smart onboard is that it has a fail-over platter in with the normal platters. As parts of your original platters fail, it fails to the fail over platter. How much has failed over is recorded by SMART and that is how it knows the integrety of your drive. A drive with poor integrity has a lot of crap loaded on the fail over platter and is likely to fail completly.

Just a little bit of worthless knowledge for ya!

-S

PS. SMART screws up from time to time too!

[FIREWALL]

Hi Guys and thx for responding.

As it was cycling thru I noticed in bottom left corner a choice of F-2

Clicked it and got a blue screen with

" Insert disk labeled "Windows Automated System Recovery Disk into floppy drive.

Will that help ?

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

Hi Guys and thx for responding.

As it was cycling thru I noticed in bottom left corner a choice of F-2

Clicked it and got a blue screen with

" Insert disk labeled "Windows Automated System Recovery Disk into floppy drive.

Will that help ?

You need to get to a command prompt outside of one requiring the registry to see if you can repair the disk. Boot your original XP CD-ROM in the drive and it will have an option for that.

-S