Upon powering on my PC, a blue screen showing this common error is displayed:
STOP: c0000218 {registry file failure} The registry cannot load the hive (file):\systemroot\system32\config\software or its log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent, or not writeable.

Beginning dump of physical memory. Physical memory dump complete. Contact your system ADMINISTRATOR or technical support group for further assistance.

Now, I know how to recover a system with this error to working condition. The problem lies within the FACT that my computer does not recognize either of my CD drives, which  prevents booting to the WINDOWS reinstallation CD. I have had a similar problem with a registry value hiding the CD drives in the past, however, now I am unable to even start Windows because of the corrupt registry error.

So, since I cannot boot to the Windows XP CD and I have a corrupted registry, what can I do to get my computer to recognize the CD drives? Or if there is another way to access the recovery console, PLEASE let me know.

Thank you.Can you see your CD drives in CMOS?   Do they show up?

If they show up, what boot order do you have them set up as?  If you want to boot from one of the CD drives, the Cd drive that you want to boot from has to be a the top of the list of drives in the boot order.

For example:

diskette (floppy drive)
cd rom
hard drive
USB

In this example, the computer is set to first look to the floppy disk for a bootable information or OPERATING System, if no Operating System if found, it will look on the CD drive for an Operating System, If no Operating System if found on the Cd rom, it looks for it on the hard drive......In your case I think the hard drive is set to boot before the CD rom, there is an operating system there so the computer boots from it, but it does not load because the registry is corrupted...

Set your boot order to look something like this:

diskette (floppy drive)
CD drive
Hard Drive



to  get to CMOS, restart your computer and press, F1, or F2 when the first screen appears..Be sure to save your settings, before exiting CMOSRegistry issue shouldn't prevent you from booting from the CD.
At that moment, it's all up to BIOS, and the registry is not even loaded, yet.
Did you check boot order in BIOS?