Sharon F I reinstalled XP after 24 hours!

[Brian]

Hello.


I used to have a 3GB partition for XP, while I reserved
the other
11GB for my files and programs. I wanted to give
XP more "elbow room" for memory by altering virtual
memory.

So I backed up my files, formatted the entire hard drive,
and created a single partition - about 14GB - for XP and
my
files. (I also have a 32MB unallocated partition, but
don't know
how that happened), so that should have given XP the room
that it
needed.

After doing all that, I really believed my problem was
solved.
But not even 24 hours after I installed XP did those
BSOD's come up
again:

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

Beginning dump of physical memory.
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator or technical
support group for further assistance.
***************************************************


24 hours! Can you believe it? I didn't fool with those
virtual memory settings because I thought that XP had
the "elbow
room" it needed.

This is the paging file size for the 14GB partition:

Custom size
Initial size (MB): 192
Maximum size (MB): 384

Also, when I switched my 40pin ribbon cable to the 80pin
for
the hard drive, I noticed that sometimes the computer did
not
recogize the hard drive during boot up. I had to "play
around"
with the ribbon cable before the boot up recognized it.


Questions:

1. Will increasing the paging file size make things
better?

2. Is it the hard drive that's the problem or ribbon
cable?
I thought that hard drives are supposed to rattle while
it's accessing data before you know it's going bad.
Mine's
not doing it that bad.


Remember that I've had this system for about a year and a
half and never
fooled with these settings or hardware and I never
worried about reinstalling
XP, so I don't see why altering these things now will
make a difference.

What is wrong with this computer? Please help. Thanks.

 

[petbones]

hi there!
looks like a hardware problem because XP can access the
drive:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;104203

a) is your new drive using position 0 (black connector)?
see note below

b) try using the same cable you were using before (some
cables looks the same but they aren't and could be that
your system doesn't support 80pin Ide ribbon cable)
if there's a blue end, i goes toward the mainboard. i
there isn't, the shorter (with two connectors) goes to the
drive: gray (pos 1=slave), black (pos 0=master). Note: use
the black for your drive: like this:

Mainboard + Blue Connector == Gray Connector(to slave)==
Black Connector + Your Main Drive

AND THERE'S THE HARD AND RIGHT WAY. GO TO:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;307545&Product=winxp

you can press F8 for boot up options