Registry file failure

It's a conspiracy!!!!

The very same thing has happened to a friends computer. he asked me over to help with this challenge and I logged on to this forum with my laptop and - Voila!!! Here the problem is repeated letter for letter and further, ON THE VERY SAME DAY... I think George W. Bush is responsible.

I was able to get into a C-Prompt ONCE and once only. While there I performed a CHKDSK and FIXDSK, with no results. I further went into PCCillin and ran a previous "Restore Point", to no avail.

Now I cannot access the C-Prompt or start the system in Safe Mode. The results are the same as noted in the first message of this thread.

Does anybody know the current whereabouts of Dick Cheney???

OK Lets get serious... does anyone have any ideas??

Run the extended hard drive diagnostics (F12 at boot). The usual cause is a failing drive.

ejn63 - Thanks for the quick response... I have enjoyed reading a number of your other responses, and appreciate your apparent knowledge on many subjects. I am suspicious of a hard drive failure as you indicate. We did run the F12/Diagnostics and came up with "error code 0F00:0244" repeatedly followed by a series of message block numbers. As I have read this forum and Googled others, a defunct hard drive seems to come up real often. Replacing the hard drive is not that big of deal except with the fact the the subject laptop, as brand new out of the box, did not come with a Windows XP operating system disc, or a Restore Disc. We do have another laptop with all systems on it (XP operating system, and other software)... is there a fix in all this or do we need to buy a Windows OS disk and other software that is 'supposed' to be available on the hard drive that is giving us problems? I look forward to your support. Darrell

The drive is indeed faulty. You can order a Windows CD from here:

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dellcare/en/backupcd_form?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&redirect=1

Hi, Thanks for the message......Im sorry to hear that you are having the same problem ( though im relieved im not the only one haha ) ......Still nothing is resolved and Dell are being worse than useless. This is the second total breakdown of my PC this year. Six months ago the same thing happened. I had every so called local expert try fix it and only made things worse. This was on Dells recommendation as they were completely baffled after me spending almost 4 hours on the phone to India speaking with their so called experts, who would not accept the fact that my laptop did NOT come with OS or restore disks. In the end a friend of a friend who trawled the Dell Community site found out about an F command which activates the OS restore program. I cant remember which F button it was, maybe F4 or 8 but this may have been preceeded by another key but ive tried them all now and nothing has happened. My friend is away until Monday, she is my only hope now. I spent virtually the whole day running every time consuming F12 diagnostic. My Pc passed every test. I have never had this stress and irritation using HP or Sony in the past so this is the first and last Dell product I will ever buy. Who needs this hassle....... Good Luck, I hope you get some success. If I hear of anything before Monday I will message you.......Cheers !

Thank you for this message, I will give it a go.........Cheers......

• Download a copy of BartPE and burn it to a CD.
• Boot the CD and open the file manager.
• First, backup or rename the existing registry hives in \system32\config.  The current files have the latest time stamp and no extensions.  Either copy them to the same location or somewhere else on the hard drive.
• The trick is to find a good copy of the registry.  What I found was BartPE would allow you to read the restore points saved in the "System Volume Information" folder.  Look through the restore points and find a recent copy of the registry hives.  Hopefully, it's not too old.
• First, try copying only the damaged hive file and then reboot.  Make sure you do a copy and not a file move.  You want to have this file in case things don't work.
• If the system starts, first thing to do is copy your files off the drive somewhere safe.  That can be another external hard drive, DVD, CD, or network share.  Recovery of your data is the first priority for most people.
• If the system complains about booting, try safe mode by pressing just before the Windows splash screen normally appears.
• If the system still won't boot, go back into Bart PE and create a backup of the current registry hives. 
• Copy all the hive files together (security, software, default, SAM) from a restore point to the config directory.
• Reboot normally and if that doesn't work, in safe mode.
• If you still can't get the system running, you can use Bart PE to get your data off the machine.

Hope this helps.

The OS etc is pre installed on Inspiron laptops, I have once in the past been able to restore the OS using an F key command ( 4 or 8 ) I have lost my notes on this. The person who helped me with this info is away at the moment and is not contactable until Monday. The Dell experts either didnt know this command or didnt want to tell it to me as they kept insisting that my machine did come with disks, it didnt of course......I have run and re run, all day yesterday and again today every ( very lengthy ) diagnostic. My PC passes every test. So it cant detect the problem. Thanks anyway, David.

after failed attempt to install xp service pack 3 I have the same error as described in this string:

 

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 writable.

 

my system: inspiron 6000 w/ xp professional (was running service pack 2).

 

I also have run all the onboard Dell system/hardware self diagnostics and there are no errors/faults reported.

 

I have (today) requested the backup discs for this laptop for use in recovery (if possible).

 

I backed up my files prior to attempting sp3 upgrade, but I need to boot successfully in order to access the backup on an external drive, and it would take a long time to reload all my software, so restoring the registry would be my preference.  My symantec software (go-back and ghost) may have had something to do with this failure, and the symantic emergency cd is not able to boot the system either.  Sadly, I did not make an automated system recovery (ASR) set prior to the attempted installation.

 

I would appreciate any feedback from others who can assist with this service pack 3 related issue.  I have seen a variety of cautions regarding various ways NOT to attempt this recovery (in my searching today).  For instance Microsoft article ID 307545 provides a procedure for recovering from this, but warns NOT to use their procedure if the computer has OEM-installed operating system (like I have).

 

post by jcn77056 on 10-05-2007 is interesting and I wonder if others have used that procedure successfully.

 

thanks

 

My only additional note for trying to recover from SP3 is that you may run into issues since the partial update has changed files which might depend on the registry entries.  You can try my suggestion and instead of deleting any of the registry hive files, rename them to something else and copy the files from the restore point preserving the restore point data.  If it doesn't work, you can rename the files and get back to where you are now.

 

Do you have a bootable Windows distribution?  You might be able to restore to a point prior to the SP3 update using the standard Windows restore functions.

Thanks for the folllowup.  No I do not have bootable windows media, but have requested the media from Dell now.... so am waiting on that delivery.  I suppose the bootable windows media may be the best method to restore, but will continue to research and seek additional advice before proceeding. 

There are two other ways to create bootable media.  You can download Ubuntu Linux or, using the Windows distribution you don't have, create a bootable Windows CD using Bart PE here.

 

Ubuntu will probably boot on your laptop and let you see the hard drive without installing anything on the drive.  That might let you at least see what's still on the drive.

thanks for the additional links.  I got a few minutes of the IT person's time at work today, and he was familiar with Bart PE.  He gave me a different link for it:

 

http://www.ubcd4win.com/index.htm

 

He also tried to prepare me for the possibility that I would likely need/want to wipe the drive and reload my software anyway.

 

The reinstall CD's from Dell were on my doorstep when I got home this evening.  That was quicker than I expected.  I really appreciate the good service.

 

I will do a bit more reading on this topic before I plunge ahead... maybe wait for the weekend.  This is not the kind of thing I do every day. 

 

I will post the results in case that is helpful.

 

 

So in case it is helpful this is the result:

I was unable to create a Boot CD using either the

 

Ultimate Boot Cd http://www.ubcd4win.com/index.htm

 

or the BartPE http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

 

Both applications were unable to create the disk without errors, due as I understand it to the fact that I have an OEM version of XP from Dell.  I tried the UBCD for Windows suggestion in the FAQ "what steps are necessary when building with a Dell CD?" but this did not eliminate the errors either.

 

So I finally gave up and I ended up wiping the C; drive and starting from sctatch... not really what I wanted to do, but am glad that the resources I needed to put it all back together were available.  It took a while , but I finally tracked down the correct drivers for the hardware features on my Inspiron 6000 using the service tag as a guide.  After a couple weeks of doing a little each day I am close to back to where I was, and I am actually running much faster now, so that is nice. And I have upgraded to SP 3 :)

 

For someone like me who is more experienced as a computer software user rather than a computer systems troubleshooter, forums like this and the support pages and downloads from the Dell site make it possible for me to take care of most of the challenges that come up (mechanical engineer day job).

 

So thanks for the help! 

take care