XP:Hard Error C0000218

[Alexyboy123]

One of my computers was booting down as a powercut hit my house. Afterwards, when I tried to boot said computer up to see if it was allright, I got the following BSoD Error message, after the XP loading screen. This seems to imply to a Hard-Drive corruption/error, though I many be mistaken

Hard Error c0000218
Unknown Hard Error

(same other junk here which goes to quickly to read)

What should I do? Reformat and reinstall windows?

 

[howard_hopkinso]

The meaning of your stop code is as follows.

0xC0000218: UNKNOWN_HARD_ERROR

A necessary Registry hive file couldn’t be loaded. The file may be corrupt or missing (requiring either an Emergency Repair Disk or a Windows reinstallation). The Registry files may have been corrupted because of hard disk corruption or some other hardware problem. A driver may have corrupted the Registry data while loading into memory, or the memory where the Registry is loading may have a parity error (turn off the external cache and check the physical RAM).

As you can see from the above, this is either caused by registry corruption, or a hardware problem.

If you go HERE you can click on your error code. It`s the sixth from bottom in the righthand pane.

There are articles on how to troubleshoot this particular stop code.

Regards Howard

 

[Alexyboy123]

Some further assisstnce would be very helpful, the articles looked useful but I don't know how to half the things in them, further more it wouldn't let me reformat.

Edit: OK I've found the Recovery Consol, I had two boot discs for this PC, I got the second one has a similar thing happened but I lost the harddrive drivers, the second disc had the harddrive drivers but not the recovery consol and vice versa. When I use the disk with the consol it complains I don't have a harddrive, I've checked the connections and the are fine. The disc with the drivers, I tried to reformat, it complained at me it could not access the harddrive. Has my harddrive gone???

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Has my harddrive gone???

All I can say is, it`s a possibility.

The fact that it won`t let you format is pretty suspicious. Try a different ide cable, just in case.

Regards Howard

 

[Alexyboy123]

Its a Maxtor SATA DiamondMax Plus 9, and unfortunatly I don't have a spare SATA Lead, though I have made sure it wasn't the power supply... I'll get the Techsperts at Work to look at it tomorrow. Anyone know any english sites where I can buy a similar product just in case, I have been looking but I know very little about buying hard drives. My Motherboard is a Asus K8 (any other info needed?)