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Registry Error, will not allow me to get into Win XP. Please help!

H

hito

Senior member
I received a Stop 0x00000051 today and it just keeps coming back. It will occur when the Windows XP logo with the blue bar passes by, then a few seconds afterwards it will appear. I have not modified my hardware in any way. After a few attempts at the normal booting, safe mode, and Last Known good configuration of it not working, I wanted to try the sfc /scannow command. In order to do so, I would have to go into the recovery console. Right after it asks which windows drive I would like to load into, the same BSOD would appear and i'm back at where I started. I have also ran the memtest86 to see if there were any errors there, but it came out okay. So, right now I am unable to load into windows or recovery console, i'm at a total loss. The file system is a NTFS as well.

Does anyone by chance know of a solution to this issue?

Thanks

- hito
 
A stop 51 is a registry error. If you are getting it while trying to reach recovery console then likely the system hive has problems (could be sam too I spose)

To repair this you need to load the damaged registry hive(file that makes up part of registry) with an XP or 2003 version of regedit. They have automatic but limited repair capabilities built in. To get access to the registry hive you need to do one of the following:

1. Boot with a WinPE, linux, ERD commander or other method that allows you access to the NTFS partition without loading the registry like recovery console does.
2. Mount the failed drive in a different box.
3. Install a parallel install of XP in a different partiton or drive.

If you do option 2 or 3, simply locate each of your software hives and load them in regedit. See "load hive" in regedit help for more info. Once loaded, simply unload them (closing regedit does not do this for you). Try to boot again. If loading the hive bluescreens whatever box you are using the hive is BADLY damaged. PM me if this is the case. I have utilities to fix registrys but you'll have to send me your hives.

If you do option 1:
Once you can reach the folder structure on the bad install, do this:

Backup the following files:
windows\system32\config\system
windows\system32\config\software
windows\system32\config\sam
windows\system32\config\security

Once backed up grab a copy of these same files from your windows\repair folder and drop them into config. This will allow you to boot although no programs will be installed yada yada. Load the bad hives you backed up per the option 2,3 instructions above. Once done, put the hives back in place in config and boot again.

Keep in mind a corrupted registry doesn't just pop out of the blue. Getting a chkdsk run on that NTFS volume would be a good idea...might even correct the problem altogether.


FYI Noggin: LastknownGood does not even apply in this situation. That only covers control sets in the system hive. This problem can happen before the select key that determines what control set to use can even be read. This could also be in the software hive which lastknowngood doesn't touch.
 
i got this problem just now when i try to boot to window. I can't even do a reinstallation as the blue screen of death with the registry error will appear. What else can i do
 
okay it starts out when i can't log on into window even if i try to get it last good setting. Then i try to repair it by booting it from a cd and it won't work as whenever i get to the recovery console but i can't type anything in the command prompt except number 1 which is c://windows, but if i hit number 1 then the blue screen appears with the registry error stop 051. So i decided to do a full reformat of xp and the blue screens appear as well with the same code. i don't know what happens. Someone help
 
If you formatted and still receive the same error, this probably points to a hardware problem. You might want to try running memtest to see if there are any ram issues.
 
If you have truly reformatted and still see this, then yes you have a hardware error. Since the error is related to filesystem corruption it could be your drives or controllers.

memtest isn't a bad idea either, but I suspect drive/controller myself.
 
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