Stop c000218 (Registry File Failure).......Help

[Ian Wilson]

As my title says, I’m facing bluescreen problem with the said error on my Windows XP system. While searching I found some more articles describing the same problem with solution saying it can be fixed from Setup Screen. But here is different situation. My system is unable to pass the boot menu screen. As soon as I select Safe Mode or Last good know configuration or any option available there, instead of booting I directly get the Blue Screen saying

“Stop: c000218 the registry can not load HIVE (file) \system\system32\config\software”

Tried searching google and MS pages but yet no success. Can anyone please tell me what else can I try to get rid of BSOD? Many Thanks.

[karrma]

Did you made any changes to the system recently which resulted in BSOD? To me it seems like the problem is with any corrupted registry. Hence you should try out repairing the same. Microsoft has a Article describing recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting. I think you should check out the same, it suites your situation: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/

[Ian Wilson]

I appreciated your help karrma but i guess you dint read my above post properly. The article link you provided me says that i need to atleast reach the "Welcome to Windows Setup" screen but as i said i am not able to even cross the boot menu. It directly turns into Bluescreen with the stop error message.

Surprisingly it wont even allow me to boot from CD or any external hard drive and that KB article says that i need to "click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD ROM when prompted". Hence it doesn't helps me any way.

Any other solution please?