Thursday, November 06, 2003
that damn blue screen
i haven't posted in a while. but just to give an update - Tuesday night (actually, since it was around 2 am, it's technically yesterday morning), my laptop crashed as it was trying to shut down. when i turned it back on it tried to boot up but instead gave me the blue screen of death, featured with this wonderful message:
Stop: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
\SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or its log or alternate
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable
after that it restarts and tries to bootup again and the same thing happens. I googled this error and found out that this problem is quite common (and the *same exact thing* also happened to Michael's laptop a few months back). The general solution is to use the OS installation CD (in my case, Windows 2000) and repair it using the Recovery Console. Since my laptop originally came with Windows98 (Win2k was later installed by MTL Computing Support), I didn't have the Win2k CD. However, I borrowed one from Michael, and it looked promising all the way up to the part where it asks you to enter the "administrator password." I ("anita7" on MTLNT) am an administrator on my laptop, so i entered my password for that--however, it wouldn't take it. i tried entering a blank password, and it didn't accept that either. i googled it and a few others with the c0000218 error message also had this issue, and some gave links to sites that had programs that allowed you to reset the password. however, michael said those didn't work for him, that he thinks he remembers finding an installation CD that didn't ask for the password (he can't remember which one).
anyway, i think the issue is that i need to supply the original admin password that was on there when Win2k was first installed. Since it was installed in December 2001 by MTL support guys, it's probably best if they check it out first. They probably have seen this error many a time and are much more knowledgeable on how to fix it. i sort of don't want to take my chances in following some random instructions i found on google, since i might end up screwing it up even further (at this point i just want to recover my data!)
Stop: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
\SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or its log or alternate
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable
after that it restarts and tries to bootup again and the same thing happens. I googled this error and found out that this problem is quite common (and the *same exact thing* also happened to Michael's laptop a few months back). The general solution is to use the OS installation CD (in my case, Windows 2000) and repair it using the Recovery Console. Since my laptop originally came with Windows98 (Win2k was later installed by MTL Computing Support), I didn't have the Win2k CD. However, I borrowed one from Michael, and it looked promising all the way up to the part where it asks you to enter the "administrator password." I ("anita7" on MTLNT) am an administrator on my laptop, so i entered my password for that--however, it wouldn't take it. i tried entering a blank password, and it didn't accept that either. i googled it and a few others with the c0000218 error message also had this issue, and some gave links to sites that had programs that allowed you to reset the password. however, michael said those didn't work for him, that he thinks he remembers finding an installation CD that didn't ask for the password (he can't remember which one).
anyway, i think the issue is that i need to supply the original admin password that was on there when Win2k was first installed. Since it was installed in December 2001 by MTL support guys, it's probably best if they check it out first. They probably have seen this error many a time and are much more knowledgeable on how to fix it. i sort of don't want to take my chances in following some random instructions i found on google, since i might end up screwing it up even further (at this point i just want to recover my data!)
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