HELP! BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH

[kaotikvizion]

Im working on my dads comp it was acting erratic & now it comes to a screen which says

STOP: c0000218 {REGISTRY FILE FAILURE}
THE REGISTRY CANNOT LOAD THE HIVE:
\SYSTEMROOT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SECURITY
OR ITS LOG OR ALTERNATE.
IT IS CORRUPT, ABSENT OR UNWRITTABLE.

is there anything I can do? I tried to repair using FIXMBR, thats what I thought it was... I have an installation cd & can repair. should I just format drive & reinstall? is that possible even? ...lol... if not, I have a known good HDD running windows XP home SP2 could I just replace they messed up drive with this known good drive? (old drive was running XP PRO tho, if that makes a difference)

Thanks for the help in advance 8D

 

[95BlackGA]

1. Start your computer from the Windows XP CD drive. If prompted, select any options that you must select to start from the CD drive.

2. When you are prompted to select Repair or Recover, press R. This starts the Microsoft Recovery Console.

3. When you are prompted, type the Administrator password. If the Administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.

4. Use the chkdsk command-line tool to examine the hard disks. At the command prompt, type chkdsk /r, and then press ENTER.

5. Read the results, and then take any steps that you must take to complete the process. For example, you may be prompted to run chkdsk /f to fix certain problems.

6. Restart the computer, and then try to run Setup again.

 

[Lexluethar]

Please read stickies:
http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/how-troubleshoot-specific-stop-errors-193301/

If you have the repair CD that would be easiest IMO. You will have to reinstall XP updates (which you should be on SP3 anyways), but it will keep all programs and files in tact.

 

[kaotikvizion]

ok so HDD is dead. Can I resort to plan b & tak the HDD from my known good comp running XP home even tho the fried HDD was running XP PRO? basically can I swap HDDs?

 

[KSoD]

Most likely XP will not boot. The information on the old HDD will not match the new system. The hardware. So you will have to do a repair install of XP.

 

[kaotikvizion]

HDD is dead can I just buy a new HDD & microsoft 7 & replace the CMOS battery & beable to use the comp?

 

[Yami]

HDD is dead can I just buy a new HDD & microsoft 7 & replace the CMOS battery & beable to use the comp?

Yes, that will work... but what does the CMOS battery have to do with anything?

 

[kaotikvizion]

My appologies, Ima newbie when it comes to IT stuff. I thought the CMOS held all the info for the old setup. I thought by replacing the battery it would reset the CMOS so I wouldnt have any problems with the new OS. my bad

 

[Yami]

My appologies, Ima newbie when it comes to IT stuff. I thought the CMOS held all the info for the old setup. I thought by replacing the battery it would reset the CMOS so I wouldnt have any problems with the new OS. my bad

Heh, don't worry about it We were all newbies at some point.
The CMOS holds information on the hardware, it doesn't have anything to do with the OS. And you don't need to replace the battery to reset the CMOS, you just need to remove it for a while.

 

[aliasaid]

Or just press the little red button next to the SATA ports to reset the cmos - which won't be necessary for what you're doing...