I am running windows XP professional. No changes have been made recently with computer, all I did was shut it off and the next time I went to boot it up I get these messages:

First the screen comes up with the message "We apologize for the inconvenience but windows did not start successfully..." And you have the options of starting in safe mode, starting from the last successful configuration or starting normally. Regardless of which choice picked, the next screen is the blue screen of death, at which it will count to 100, restart and begin the whole process over.

The Blue screen of death has the following message:
"Stop: c0000218{registry file failure}

The registry cannot load the hive (file):
\systemRoot\system32\Config\SOFTWARE

Beginning dump of physical memory"


Please help me if you can!! I am lost

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

Take a look at this thread www.techspot.com/vb/topic8356.html

Regards Howard

i get the same error and i dont ahve an XP Pro disk (came preloaded). I tried making the 6 bootable floppies and that did not work either. Any other suggestion to get this thing to boot would be great, thanks

U should always try to rule out the fact that this maybe a software problem.
Than u could look if this is a hardware problem.

1. Check if u have the latest Bios Firmware installed
2. Get all the latest drivers for your hardware.
-Your mobo/chipset/network drives.
-Your Graphics Card
-Sound Card
-IDE/SATA/RAID Drivers (including Bios)
-Other components

when al these things are up to date, you should consider some other options.
Do you still get the blue screens?
If yes, u should always try a new installation of your OS with the new drivers.

If u did al of these things or already or already done it.
Then u can start testing your hardware.
Try testing your memory (with Memtest)
Scan your complete harddrive for any failures or Bad Sectors.

Ask yourself always a couple of questions when you're problem solving.
When does the problem usually occur?
Is there a sumilarity in time these bluescreen appear?
Did i change anything since the problem started?
Can i replicate the problem or can i find a reference to somebody who had the same problem and so find the solution.

Problem solving is no more than just ruling out posibilities so you can find the problem. Try everything one step at a time and try to rule out any other explanation untill u have one left.

Happy Hunting.