Windows XP Pro will not boot up

[Bob Johnson]

I changed a fan in my computer and now it will not boot up. I tried Safe mode
and Last known good configuration, but nothing works. It appears to be
booting then a blue screen appears but it disappears so quickly I cannot read
what it says. Is there any way to freeze the screen at that point? Does
anyone have any other suggestions?

Thank you.

 

[sgopus]

Go into your bios and change the halt on error option to halt on all errors,
once you have the error documented, change it back.

 

[Bob Johnson]

Do you mean the Bios Setup Utility? If so where do I make the change? All I
can find is 'Wait for F1 if error', which is already enabled.

 

[Jim in Arizona]

I changed a fan in my computer and now it will not boot up. I tried Safe
mode
and Last known good configuration, but nothing works. It appears to be
booting then a blue screen appears but it disappears so quickly I cannot
read
what it says. Is there any way to freeze the screen at that point? Does
anyone have any other suggestions?

Thank you.

Hi Bob.

I don't know if sgopus's answer will be helpful or not since different
motherboards can have different BIOS setups.
The only thing I can think of is to try and press the Pause-Break button on
your keyboard right when the error pops up. Typically, it will pause the
startup proccess (BIOS POST) when you press this key. I'm hoping you'll be
able to do this quick enough in order to see your error. Other than that, I
can't think of anything. I don't know if the error you are seeing is
generated by windows or your BIOS.

HTH,
Jim

 

[Gerry]

Bob

Please post the complete Stop Error ( BSOD) Report.

Disable automatic restart on system failure. This should help by
allowing time to write down the STOP code properly. Right click on
the My Computer icon on the Desktop and select Properties, Advanced,
Start-Up and Recovery, System Failure and uncheck box before
Automatically Restart.

Do not re-enable automatic restart on system failure until you have
resolved the problem. Check for variants of the Stop Error message.

An alternative is to keep pressing the F8 key during Start-Up and select
option - Disable automatic restart on system failure.


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Bob Johnson]

I ended up taking a digital picture of the screen. The error message is
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.

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.

I have tried Article ID 830084 and checkdisk did find and repair at least 1
error but that did not fix the problem. I have seen it suggested that I could
try Article ID 307545 but it warns not to use it if using an OEM operating
system. I am using an OEM O/S. Any other suggestions or is it probably a
damaged hard drive?

 

[Peter Foldes]

Another Registry Cleaning Tool showing it's teeth

How to recover from a corrupt Registry if Windows does not start

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q307545

 

[Bob Johnson]

This is the article that says do not try it if I am running an OEM installed
operating system, which I have.

 

[Gerry]

Bob

Do you have data files you need to recover? You need to resolve this
issue first. You may be able to recover the data by placing the hard
drive in another computer as a second (slave) drive and use the the
operating system from that computer to back up your data to removable
media. An alternative is to place the hard drive in an external cradle,
connect it to another computer and back up your data to removable media.

Background information on Stop Error message
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms797160.aspx

0xC0000218: UNKNOWN_HARD_ERROR
A necessary Registry hive file couldn't be loaded. The file may be
corrupt or missing (requiring either an Emergency Repair Disk or a
Windows reinstallation). The Registry files may have been corrupted
because of hard disk corruption or some other hardware problem. A driver
may have corrupted the Registry data while loading into memory, or the
memory where the Registry is loading may have a parity error (turn off
the external cache and check the physical RAM).
Source: http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm

Do you have an Emergency Recovery Disk?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Repair_Disk

What do you have by way of a Windows XP CD? I think you will have to do
a new install of Windows XP.

I cannot say if it has been caused by a damaged hard drive. When you
tried chkdsk did it complete the process?


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Bob Johnson]

I already have my data files backed up. I did a chkdsk and it did find at
least 1 error but that did not help the problem (I ran it twice).
Unfortunately, I do not have an Emergency Repair Disk, can I create one from
another computer?

If I do a new install without reformatting will the data files still be there?

Thank you.

 

[Bob Johnson]

Just to let you and the others know I was able to get my hard drive to boot.
I did use the Article #307545 that was mentioned, only I used the 'Manual
steps' section. There was one part that did not work and that was trying to
get the System Volume Information file to open. I did not have a security tab
on mine so that part of the article did not work. I found a non Microsoft
article at
http://webcast.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=8658 that
helped with that part. Once I finished, the only issues I had were some
networking problems and I had to reinstall my security. Other than that all
seems to be working fine.
Thank you for all your responses.