System Restore will not boot

[Guest]

I have the HP media center 883n. I'm not sure what
caused the problem, but it may have been when I tried to
isntall the .NET Compact Framework Service Pack 1. It
never would open the file, so I just gave up.

I then tried doing a fresh install of everything on the
computer like I've done before by going into the system
recovery. When I try to get there, either by selecting
the program under the START menu, or by pressing F10
during startup, I get the message...

Stop: c0000218 {Registry File Failure} The registry
cannot load the hive(file): \SystemRoot\System32
\Config\Security
or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.


Every help guide I see online says to boot into System
Recovery to copy over your new files, but I cannot get to
this step. Is there anything else I can do? I can't
even try to boot from the XP cd since it comes budled on
the computer.

 

[Rich Barry]

The Registry is corrupted. You can repair that from the Recovery Console
but that would be on the Win
XP CD. If you don't have a CD then probably HP has provided a
Recovery Image Partition. Go to HP's
website and look for info there.
http://tinyurl.com/2jbuf

 

[Alex Nichol]

Every help guide I see online says to boot into System
Recovery to copy over your new files, but I cannot get to
this step. Is there anything else I can do? I can't
even try to boot from the XP cd since it comes budled on
the computer.

All the references to booting the recovery console require that you have
a 'proper' XP CD - which HP do not supply. If you can borrow one and
boot it,. that should be usable for this purpose