Re: registry repair

Bruce, I am sorry if my windows XP repair ignorance has offended you! I
have been told from a few different postings around the net that my
problem has to do with the registry, maybe corrupted because my hard
drive was damaged? That was my best guess with my limited XP knowledge.
Please accept my apology.

While I was using my laptop a few days ago, all of a sudden I got a
blue screen saying something about the hard drive then the machine just
shut off before I could read the full message. I have not been able to
reproduce that blue screen to get the exact text it displayed.

Now everytime I start my computer in 'normal' mode and get to the
desktop I get a message box with the following text:

"One of the files containing the system's Registry had to be recovered
by use of a log or alternate copy. The recovery was successful."

after about 5 seconds the machine locks up, whether I dismiss the
message box or not.

I can startup in safe mode and most everything works fine, EXCEPT if I
try a system restore, that just hangs the machine as well. I have tried
to install some 3rd party applications that do a check of the registry
/ hard drive but trying to install those hangs the system as well.

I have now booted from the dell operating system CD that came with my
laptop, and at the windows recovery console I try to select an
installed version of windows to recover and after making my selection
the system just hangs yet again.

I'm not sure what else I can do at this point, I will try your memory
test suggestion while running in safe mode.

Thanks


Bruce Chambers wrote:
markww wrote:
Hi,

My registry is apparently damaged .....


What makes you think so? How, specifically, is it damaged? What
specific troubleshooting steps did you follow (and what were the precise
results of each) that led you to such a conclusion.


.... and I'd like to do a clean wipe of
it.


The *ONLY* way to do that would be to format the hard drive and
reinstall the entire operating system.


I inserted my win XP cd and rebooted from the CD drive. I
read that booting from the winXP cd gives you the option to rewrite a
clean registry.


I don't know where you could have possibly read such a thing, but
never, ever, follow any more technical advice from that source.


Going through the boot from CD operation tries to load
a bunch of files from the CD,


Correct. It's starting to reinstall the operating system, as it's
designed to do.


and the operation always fails to find
some file from the CD (different one everytime I try it).


Problems copying files or corrupted files during installation are
most often caused by defective, incompatible, or sub-standard hardware;
in order of likelihood, either RAM, the hard drive, or the motherboard.
On very rare occasions the CD drive or installation CD is the problem.


Anyways, any ideas how I can clear the damaged registry if my CD
efforts will not work?


The first thing to do would be to determine what's really wrong with
the computer. Based upon what little detail you've provided, I'd
suspect defective RAM, to start with. Try testing it with MemTest86:

http://www.memtest86.com/



I am most sad as this is the 3rd hardware
shennanigan my dell laptop has thrown at me.


If you know you have a hardware problem, why are you trying to wipe out
the registry? That makes no sense, to me.




--

Bruce Chambers

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