Win2k error... Help! Please!!!!

[TruculentTucan]

ok, I put together my computer yesterday and it worked with only a few minor hitches (I haven't been able to get the floppy drive to work). I managed to install Win98 and then put win2k on top of it. Since then I have loaded my software onto it and most has worked fine.

Last night I remember copying over some of my mp3 files, some files for Freespace 2, and installing Partition Magic. They all seemed to work fine and this morning I turned on the power switch and left the room as the system booted. I came back to a blue screen. On this screen was written:

STOP: C0000218 {Registy File Failure}
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
\SystemRoot\System32\config\SOFTWARE

below that was writting a whole bunch of steps used to fix it. The first said if you haven't seen this error before then restart. I did. Same thing. The second told me to unplug any new hardware and check that all my software was installed properly. Well, I have restarted numerous times with the hardware currently in the system, so I do not believe that is the problem. Then I attempted to recall exactly what I had installed the night before. I figured i had installed Freespace 2 files, mp3's, and Partition Magic, all without a restart. So, I turned the machine off again and this time told it to boot in Safe Mode. Same problem. I cannot go into to windows to attempt and remove the offending software (which I think is partition magic). I'm at a loss as to what to do, short of reformatting and reinstalling everything.

My system:
AMD Athlon 1200@1200
256 megs Crucial RAM
30 gig Maxtor HD
Iwill kk266 mobo
Sony 52x CDROM drive
32 meg Radeon LE

any help would be great!
Thanks!

 

[ddiccico]

i had this problem too. the computer is shutting down before the HD has written all the info from the cache to the disk. turning off acpi fixed it for me.

 

[TruculentTucan]

ACPI? what does that stand for? =) can I turn it off in the BIOS?

 

[ddiccico]

acpi is Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. some people turn it off because of problems like you described.

to turn it off (you can reverse this later if you decide to), go into the control panel->system->device manager.
the top listing will be computer, and in it you will see something like "acpi uniprocessor PC"
right click it, select properties, click second tab (driver) and update driver.
instead of having it search for a suitable driver, click display list so i can choose.
click show all hardware (instead of compatible hardware), and you'll see a list of about 5 models.
choose standard pc (it's the last choice on my list)

you'll have to reboot, and it will reinstall a lot of drivers, but that's normal.

 

[TruculentTucan]

bump

 

[Techwhore]

Have you tried to repair w2k? Do you have an ERD? And I'm assumming that w2k is installed on an NTFS partition right?

If you can't repair it and don't have an ERD then i'd suggest just reinstalling. You can install over the currecnt w2k or you can do a clean install. It shouldn't be that much of a hassle to just clean install since you just did it.

 

[TruculentTucan]

see below... (my bad i pressed submit too early.... and then forgot i could edit it)

 

[TruculentTucan]

i just ended up reinstalling 2k, everything seems to be fine, I hope... But just in case I'm building a partition with all of my data on it =) that way if it gets messed up i can just reinstall it and not lose data.