STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}

[Ron]

I can't find any 2003 related group. If I'm in the wrong group, point me in
the right direction pls. Thanks.

I have a Windows server 2003 AD controller and this happens to be the only
controller in the network. I just shut it down for a few minutes. Turned it
back on and I got the following BSOD:

------------------------------------------
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 writable
------------------------------------------

It does that physical dump crap... reboots itself... and back to the above
BSOD. I've tried hitting F8:

- Safe mode
- AD recovery mode
- Last known good

none of them worked. It goes in a circle with the above blue screen, reboots
and back to blue screen. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? I have no
backup at all.

 

[John John]

Try this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/en-us

and read here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822705/en-us

John

 

[Ron]

Thanks. I managed to get it to boot up. I used Bart PE to boot and run
chkdsk /r. Here's what it says:

E:\i386\System32>chkdsk c: /r
The type of the file system is NTFS.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
Security descriptor verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 10424
of name \WINDOWS\system32\config\software.
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.
Adding 3 bad clusters to the Bad Clusters File.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

10482380 KB total disk space.
2221100 KB in 10518 files.
2788 KB in 983 indexes.
12 KB in bad sectors.
75820 KB in use by the system.
54464 KB occupied by the log file.
8182660 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
2620595 total allocation units on disk.
2045665 allocation units available on disk.
Unable to obtain a handle to the event log.
------------------------------------------------

After running chkdsk /r, I rebooted the server. It boots up with a message
saying something about the registry corruption and it's has been fixed. I
clicked OK. After a couple of minutes, I noticed SAVEDUMP.EXE took 100% of
CPU time so I rebooted the server the second time.

It looks normal now. I don't see any error messages in the event logs. The
only thing that's different (that I know of) is that "My Computer" now says
"Folder" with no icon.

Good thing it's in a test lab environment. At least I know how to fix it
now.

 

[John John]

You're welcome, glad to see you got it going again.

John