The registry cannot load the hive(file)

[aphex]

Fixing a Insiprion 6000 for my wife's friend. XP Media Center. No recovery CD's. Normally I would boot into recovery console using the recovery cd's, but without them I'm at a loss on how to best proceed and repair

I have an old XP Pro SP2 CD, but when I boot into Setup, Recovery console isn't presented as an option. Seems to have a recovery partition, but not sure what function key would boot me into it (and if it would give any options other than a full wipe and restore).

Any ideas?

STOP: c0000218
The registry cannot load the hive(file):
\SystemRoot\System32\Config\DEFAULT
or its log or alternate.

It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

 

[aphex]

Update, got into Recovery Console. It wasn't showing on my slipstreamed XP, but did on the original. Working on restoring now

 

[aphex]

Odd, while in Recovery Console it locked up (before I was able to run anything). Rebooted and now it restarts when going into Recovery Console.

 

[RebateMonger]

Many Dells boot into the Dell System Recovery partition with the Ctrl-F11 key combination. But Dell's Recovery partition only offers a full wipe-and-restore to the original as-shipped configuration.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: aphex
Odd, while in Recovery Console it locked up (before I was able to run anything). Rebooted and now it restarts when going into Recovery Console.

Did you test the memory yet? That can kill the Registry as well as cause ongoing reboots.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: aphex
Odd, while in Recovery Console it locked up (before I was able to run anything). Rebooted and now it restarts when going into Recovery Console.

Did you test the memory yet? That can kill the Registry as well as cause ongoing reboots.

8 hours of memtest 86+, no errors....

 

[Matt1970]

Run checkdisk on the drive.