Windows Registry Error

APZonerunner

So earlier today there was some sort of power surge or something and lights on my stretch of the street flickered on and off. My PC has a surge protector, but it still flicked off. So I get up and I just flick it back on again. It does that old "you never shut off properly" check, and then carries on booting into XP.

I then get this:

STOP: C0000218 {Registry File Failure}

It lists a windows system32 folder, and begins 'dumping physical memory to disc.'

Then it shuts down, restarts, and starts over.

When I put in my XP disc for a recovery for some reason it just hangs at "Starting Windows.." Bleh.

Help. I really don't want to go to the place I bought this from and pay £50 for them to tell me what's wrong and then another £50 to fix it or something ridiculous.

Doomulon

Do you even get a chance to get into Windows, or does it crash while booting?

You may try accessing safe mode by pressing F8 during the booting process, there are a few other options there but most are commonly useless. That would be a start.

APZonerunner

Yeah, crashes before I can get in. Safe Mode does the same.

I even found the MS support page for the problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/

But the problem now is even when I insert my XP disc I can't get to the recovery console because it loads everything then just sits with "Setup is Starting Windows" there forever.

GrimReaper

APZonerunner wrote: »

Yeah, crashes before I can get in. Safe Mode does the same.

I even found the MS support page for the problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/

But the problem now is even when I insert my XP disc I can't get to the recovery console because it loads everything then just sits with "Setup is Starting Windows" there forever.

So, your machine freezes whilst booting the windows cd?

Could possibly be that the surge has damaged something on your machine?

In this situation i'd either try one of two things:

1. Try a repair install with recovery console or..
2. Use a BartPE cd, recover any and all files etc that can be recovered then reinstall windows fresh.

The downside to BartPE is you need a working windows install to actually create the cd itself. If you have access to another pc (like work) which will allow you to install pebuilder etc then you should be ok. Also, you'd need something else on the network (if you have one) like a nas, or other computer to copy the files to.