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Thread ID: 105201 2009-11-23 04:49:00 XP would not boot rumpty (2863) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
832663 2009-11-23 04:49:00 My XPSP3 installation failed, don't know why, would not boot.
The blue screen said "c0000218 [Reg hive failure]
The registry cannot load the hive (file) sysroot\system32\config\DEFAULT"
After some research, I copied the file "default" from Windows\repair to replace the file DEFAULT in the above directory, and all is well again, XP booted.

Is my XP now in a stable state? Should anything more be done? What is in that "default" file anyway? - it has a date from some time ago.
rumpty (2863)
832664 2009-11-23 04:58:00 It can mean the hdd is too old / or corrupted as well. And should be replaced / or reformatted. Because it may happen again Speedy Gonzales (78)
832665 2009-11-23 05:12:00 Thanks Speedy. The drive is a nice Seagate 500GB SATA one too, obviously not very old. Maybe the power adaptor cable (4-pin to Sata) is dodgy. rumpty (2863)
832666 2009-11-23 06:34:00 It could also mean faulty memory. It would not hurt to do a memtest anyway. Sweep (90)
832667 2009-11-23 06:34:00 I would suggest that having got windows to load you do a restore so that all 5 registry hives are from the same time frame.Ref MS Q307545 page 1 "NOTE Make sure to replace all 5 of the registry hives etc etc" jinja_thom (4306)
832668 2009-11-23 07:56:00 I did wonder about the effect of restoring a bit of the registry (if that is what I have done) from a time some years earlier? Seems almost impossible for it to work.

Perhaps putting an image of the drive back, from a month or two ago, would be the best idea.
rumpty (2863)
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