i use windows XP home edition with service pack 1 . Lately quite often when i boot up my computer and i get a windows registry error . below is what the message says .

windows-registry recovery
one of the files containing the system registry data had to be recovered due to the use of a log or alternative copy . recovery was succesful.

any ideas what is causing this?? , can i find out what file is causing it anyway??

Do you do your PC-maintenance faithfully? Like first running CHKDSK and then defrag (at least once a month, better every week)?

i didnt no , didn run it for about 5 months (defrag) . think all this problem started when i installed new nvidia drivers , but cant be sure . have gone back to old drivers (using detonator RIP) . might be nothing to do with nvidia drivers . I was hoping there was a log or text file that might tell me which file is causing the problems . think i might just re-install windows

i also had this problem "One of the files containing the system's registry data had to be recovered by the use of a log or alternate copy. The recovery was succesful" -> the problem is in the userprofile. When this user logs on to another machine the problem stays. => give the user a new profile and the problem is solved

This problem has also been associated with faulty Ram, so try swapping out Ram before you format your HD or do anything to drastic. I had this problem with one of the computers here at work and thought it was an OS issue. After imaging the HD from a computer that was clean the problem still popped up telling me it's hardware related. I swapped out the ram and it was fixed.

I was having the same problem in XP pro SP2, I did a thorough chkdsk scan and it fixed the problem. I guess my HD is getting old...

update: My computer froze again and now I get three of the same error message when Windows boots up... 2 before choosing a user, and one that is user specific. chkdsk didn't fix this one, neither did swapping ram or anything like that. I think I'll try repairing my windows install, if that doesn't work I might have to reformat...