Hey everyone! I need some help with fixing my comp; it runs Win XP Pro with SP2. I understand that i can easily just re-install Windows, but that is my last resort. I am currently having some sort of registry problem, and i cant even start up in Safe Mode. I have already created a Windows XP MS-DOS startup disk, and i am really lost as to what to do from here. Here is the error i was receiving (on my blue screen of death):

STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The Registry Cannot Load the Hive (file):
\systemroot\system32\config\default
Or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

What is it that i need to do in the command prompt? Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if its just a lead in the right direction, because right now, i am quite the newb at navigating MS-DOS! Thanks everyone!

ALSO: If it wasn't obvious before, i do have another computer to perform neccessary operations as needed.thanks for the quick response! It looks to be exactly what i need! I wouldn't have guessed that the windows website would actually be USEFUL X-o. I'll let you KNOW how it goes, thanks for your help!ok, i'm still having problems...my Windows XP cd is a backup disk..it WORKS if a comp boots up normally, but it wont boot up from the cd unless you can already accesss windows int he first place...anyone know how i could initialize the boot up from my cd drive from a floppy disk (dos?)?can you explain a little more? , your in dos and your trying to boot the installation cd , from dos?
or your just trying to load the cd , instead of starting windows?Both, essentially, if that makes any sense:

I need to be able to access the recovery window, and then i can solve my issues from there (thanks to your previous link that is now gone for some reason?). In order to reach the recovery window (as i'm sure u well know, but i'd much rather be more clear this time =D), i need to be able to boot up off of the Windows XP installer CD since i cannot even make it through a windows boot up. The problem is, my Windows XP CD i have is a backup CD (original MIA), and its all i have; this CD works just fine for whatever reason if you run it while in Windows, where it manually restarts your computer, and your good to go, and everything runs just fine. Otherwise, if you designate in the bios to boot up off the CD, it doesn't FIND anything and continues on to booting up off the hard drive :-/. So, i thought that my best chance would be to somehow start my Windows XP CD through MS-DOS, as so far, thats the most i've been able to get to. So, if i can start it up with MS-DOS, or any other alternative method you can think of, i would appreciate it mucho =) Thanks for your time Diablo416 =)

have you tryed rebooting it with ctrl+alt+delete , after the cd fails to load .. so that the cd is inserted before it startsup , ive had similar problems.. and found success with that, im not completely sure but after you fix dos prompt to read a cd , once it does .. its going to ask to reboot anyways

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/win98/tips/erd.mspx?mfr=true
that page underneith .. "adding the cd-rom driver" contains a solution to using a cd drive at dos prompt,
idealy if you can get a windows nt recovery disk , it will have an option to boot with a cd drive support, saves alot of time.. id send it to you myself, but i do not have an a:\ drive anymore and cant get it off the diskette.. ill see if i can track one down thats already online though

hope this helps, sorry for the delayDont worry, i appreciate all the help i can get, dont even worry about the response time, i'm not exactly hasty either =)

I'm not sure what you mean by a ctrl+alt+del boot, i've never done one before; whats different about it, and when do you hold it down? because initially after it fails to boot from the cd, it jumps right into booting off the HD, and then after it almost completely loads, i get my lovely BSOD...so i'm not sure when it is i'm supposed to hold it down.

Also, what do you mean by "so that the cd is inserted before it startsup"? Sorry, i just wish to clarify so we don't have any misunderstandings =)

"its going to ask to reboot anyways" -- Right, but hopefully it will have some sort of temporary storage to where it correctly boots off the Win XP Installer CD after it restarts the computer (i'm not sure exactly how it works, but i know something happens, read a little further)...because thats the only way i found that the Win XP Install CD works....heres what i mean by that...as i said before, when i run the CD normally while in Windows, and you select "install Windows", it says it will reboot the computer, and then after it restarts, it boots up off the Win XP Installer CD perfectly fine...i can reinstall windows/do whatever without a hitch. Why does it work then and not from a bios startup? I believe if i initialize some sort of startup other than the bios doing it, it will work due to some sort of boot record save.

I took a look at your link...and it seems like that would be a solution, but the problem is, i can't find "config.sys", and i wont have my specific cd-rom driver info, as the brands of my cd-roms are different. I guess if it came down to it, i could borrow the cd drive for this process, which really isnt that much of a pain, but none the less, i'm not sure where to find "config.sys"; searching for it via Windows turned up nill (hidden files and everything).

I saw that there was a 4.2 MB Windows startup disk that i could download when i was lookin stuff up (from the official Windows site, if i remember correctly)...it was the only worthwhile result i found besides what you've come up with...i'm not sure how exactly that will work (will it seperate it onto several floppys?)...is this the correct thing i would need? I thought the windows startup disk was only one floppy. Just curious to see if you thought this would be a waste of time and/or unlikely to be useful...cuz if it will work, i wouldn't mind going out and buying a few ancient floppys =). I'm in doubt due to the separation of the file that would be NECC to save it to floppys...not sure if it would correctly break it up for you, or if it would even work being broken up.

Thanks a lot for stickin with me man, hopefully we can fix this =) . I appreciate the help!!! =D Let me know what you think, i'll check back tomorrow.Hello y'all.......I've got the exact same problem as "Armenix" and I've quoted his post below. I cant read any responses on the forum though, so, I have to ask again. My computer is a Dell laptop. While I was online yesterday, the screen went black (I thought the battery died, but that wasn't it) I plugged in the power supply and hit the start button and the last page came back up. I continued working for a few minutes, but then the computer shut down. This may have been because I pressed the power button more than once, I don't know. Later, when I re-started, the BSOD came up. Now, problem is that when I do restart, it always gets to the BSOD and it won't let me go to any safe or MSdos page on startup. It also won't boot to the cd-rom. I don't have a floppy drive, so, what now? I am only slightly familiar with DOS, and moving around in the registry, so, please bear with me. Thanks

Quote from: Armenix on October 15, 2007, 03:54:20 PM

Hey everyone! I need some help with fixing my comp; it runs Win XP Pro with SP2. I understand that i can easily just re-install Windows, but that is my last resort. I am currently having some sort of registry problem, and i cant even start up in Safe Mode. I have already created a Windows XP MS-DOS startup disk, and i am really lost as to what to do from here. Here is the error i was receiving (on my blue screen of death):

STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The Registry Cannot Load the Hive (file):
\systemroot\system32\config\default
Or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

What is it that i need to do in the command prompt? Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if its just a lead in the right direction, because right now, i am quite the newb at navigating MS-DOS! Thanks everyone!

ALSO: If it wasn't obvious before, i do have another computer to perform neccessary operations as needed.