I got up this morning and started up my personal laptop (Dell Inspiron B130 running Windows XP) only to be greeted with the following message in white text on a blue screen:

STOP: c0000218 [Registry File Failure]
The registry cannot locate the hive (file):
\systemroot\system32\config\software
or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

Beginning dump of physical memory...
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system adminstrator or technical support group for further assistance.

So naturally I called Dell Tech Support and they want to charge me $39.99 just to tell me what is wrong with it...excluding the cost of any parts, wiring, labor, shipping, replacement etc. So I said ok you want me to pay you for something I can find out on FCP for free? She said "I'm sorry sir, FCP?" and she was greeted with the sound of the dial tone.

So what gives? I didn't do anything wrong besides watch a little gay porn. But jeez... a system crash? A little excessive don't ya think?

Any help would be greatly appreciated yadda yadda yadda.

- Crack

Wish I could help, but this is all I know about dealing with computer problems...

Obviously if it can't find a registry file, it's a complete crash and not a minor thing. It sounds like your hard drive is failing. Did your laptop come with a diagnostics CD? If so, put that in, and see what that tells you. If the tests fail during hard drive check, then definitely the hard drive, and you'll need to replace it. You could probably do it yourself, and save time/money on Dell's BS. There will be documentation on Dell's website for your model on how to replace/dismantle stuff yourself.

fahhhk... can't find my diagnostics CD. Is that the same thing as a Windows XP backup CD? My Dad has one so I'll probably head over his place and use it. Is the CD specific to my laptop or will any one work?

http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=307545

will probably fix it. make sure to do the whole article or you will just have the original registry and not a fairly recent one.

Any cd should work if you are just going into the recovery console.

However, if you are trying to do a reinstall on a laptop you should probably use the cd that came with it.

thanks guys.... running the diagnostic check via CD-Rom right now...

plan B is to get to work using Snow's literature

Much appreciated..i'll let you know how it turns out

I opted to start from scratch and reinstall Windows completely after the manual recovery procedure failed. I got an error message during one of the DOS command prompts so I'm playing it safe.

Same thing happened to me and I had to reinstall windows. It sucked.

probably too late... but instead of wiping... try booting into the windows XP recovery console (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058)

after logging into it... run chkdsk /r ... this will take a little time

if that does not repair it... run a hard drive check... then reinstall windows...