Error 0xC0000218 Software Hive corrupted

[Guest]

I am having a problem with the software hive getting corrupted. I have read
that this is likely because the hive is being written to at shutdown
resulting in it being corrupt at the next boot.

I do not have a current backup of the hive and I would like to know if there
is a way to restore the Software hive through regedt32.exe or some other way
using the corrupted hive. Thanks!

I do know that the problem is not hardware related, so it must be a problem
with the hive.

 

[John John]

I take it that the pc does boot up and Windows loads and starts? If you
have no good working backup of the registry it will be next to
impossible to use regedt32 to "fix" the registry unless you know exactly
what is wrong. Secondly, if you have no known "good" backup how are you
going to "restore" the hive? Are any events logged in the Event Viewer
at shutdown?

One of the best way to fix the problem that you describe is to (at least
temporarilly) stop ALL non essential applications and services or
processes from starting automatically when the pc starts. Chances are
that a rogue running application or service is causing this problem.

Be warned that trying to replace registry hives can lead to disastrous
results requiring a reinstall of the operating system. It is a last
ditch effort when the pc refuses to boot. Microsoft has tools available
to use if the pc can't boot, for example:

Windows 2000 Registry Repair Utility
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...01-2c68-4de8-9229-ca494362419c&DisplayLang=en

If the pc boots best to find out what is causing the error before using
these tools or attempting to "fix" the registry. For starters, as I
mentioned earlier, look in the event log and post the error log here.

John

 

[Dave Patrick]

If the software hive is corrupt, it may be possible to rename the software
hive found in;
%windir%\system32\config\software
to software.old
then copy the most recent backup found in
%windir%\repair\regback
as
%windir%\system32\config\software

If that fails you can copy/ use the file
%windir%\repair\software
This file is an image of the hive at the time the OS was installed, so you'd
have to reinstall all software. This being the case you might just as well
blow it away and start a new install. (note: this would at least allow you
to start the OS to make any necessary backups prior to wiping the drive.)

To start the Recovery Console, start the computer from the Windows 2000
Setup CD or the Windows 2000 Setup floppy disks. If you do not have Setup
floppy disks and your computer cannot start from the Windows 2000 Setup CD,
use another Windows 2000-based computer to create the Setup floppy disks. At
the "Welcome to Setup" screen. Press F10 or R to repair a Windows 2000
installation, and then press C to use the Recovery Console. The Recovery
Console then prompts you for the administrator password. If you do not have
the correct password, Recovery Console does not allow access to the
computer. If an incorrect password is entered three times, the Recovery
Console quits and restarts the computer. Note If the registry is corrupted
or missing or no valid installations are found, the Recovery Console starts
in the root of the startup volume without requiring a password. You cannot
access any folders, but you can carry out commands such as chkdsk, fixboot,
and fixmbr for limited disk repairs. Once the password has been validated,
you have full access to the Recovery Console, but limited access to the hard
disk. You can only access the following folders on your computer: drive
root, %systemroot% or %windir%

Make sure write cache is not enabled.

Possible Data Loss After You Enable the "Write Cache Enabled" Feature
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=281672

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q233541

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Guest]

Okay, I was unable to boot into Windows 2000, but I have a dual boot system
with which I was able to copy the old hive to a backup folder and then use
the hive in the repair folder to get into Windows 2000. I will probably have
to reinstall all the software on the OS as the old software hive seems to
have been truncated from an over 10MB file to about a 258KB file.

At this point, I don't really want to do an OS reinstall because of my
personal data files on the PC and others that I share the PC with.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions that you guys posted. I will
probably use them in the future.