Hopefully you will never encounter Windows registry problems but in case you do the following may help ease the pain.

Below are a list of some of the most common Windows registry errors:

1. Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:\%SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
2. Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:\%SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE
3. STOP 0×00000051 (0×0000000c, 0xc0000005, 0x????????, 0x????????) REGISTRY ERROR. This STOP error can occur if there is an I/O error while there is an attempt to read a registry hive. Lack of resources can also be an issue.
4. Stop: 0xc0000218 {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive (file): \%SystemRoot%\System32\Config\<CorruptHive> or its log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent, or not writable. Typically this error means the specified registry hive file could not be loaded either because it is missing or corrupted. This error can also be an indication of fault RAM module(s)
5. Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:\%SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM.ced. This error can be generated because this regsirty limit set has been exceeded.

There are several reasons the registry or one of its hives can get corrupted. Some of these reasons include a) power failures, b) registry written to at shutdown, c) file corruption, or d) defective hardware (RAM, Disk, CPU).

Windows Registry Recovery

The following Windows registry fixes will alleviate most of the registry errors listed above:

A. Using the Last Known Good Configuration recovery feature in Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 allows you to boot the computer with last configuration settings that worked. To access the Last Known Good Configuration

1. recovery feature use these steps:

1. Start your computer.
2. When you see the Please select the operating system to start message, press the F8 key.
3. When the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, use the ARROW keys to select Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked), and then press ENTER.
4. If you are running other operating systems on the computer, use the ARROW keys to select Microsoft Windows 2000/Xp/2003 from the list that is displayed, and then press ENTER.

B. Using Windows Recovery Cconsole.

How to Replace a Corrupt Registry Hive for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003

 

1. Insert the Windows XP or Server 2003 CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer. Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted to do so.
2. When the “Welcome to Setup” screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
3. Type the number of the OS installation that you need to repair.
4. When you are prompted , type the Administrator password.
5. At the prompt, type chkdsk c: /p and then press ENTER. Once chkdsk completes, type exit and then press ENTER to see if the error persists upon reboot. If so, follow steps 1-4 and proceed with the next step
6. At the prompt, type cd system32\config and then press ENTER.
7. Type ren system system.old and then press ENTER.
8. Type systemroot and then press ENTER.
9. Type cd repair and then press ENTER.
10. Type copy system c:\<WinDir>\System32\Config and then press ENTER. where <WinDir> is the folder where Windows is installed, usually either Winnt or Windows.
11. Type exit and then press ENTER. The computer restarts with the recovered System hive.

C. Use Windows 2000 Registry Repair Utility ChkReg.exe

1. Download Chkreg.exe from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=56d3c201-2c68-4de8-9229-ca494362419c&displaylang=en
2. Place the system hive that is too large in c:\bin.
3. Copy the CHKREG utility from the above links to this directory.
4. Run the following command and cmd prompt chkreg /f c:\bin\system /d 5 /s>c:\bin\chkreg.txt
5. The /d 5 switch is used to determine how far down the registry tree is displayed. You may need to increase this but 5 is usually enough to get you heading in the right direction.
6. Open the chkreg.txt file and delete everything above the following section
7. Keys,Values, Cells, Size, SubKeys 1, 2, 6, 2824, ControlSet001\Control\Arbiters\AllocationOrder
8. Open the chkreg.txt using Excel. Select delimited when prompted, click Next, then select comma for the delimiter, click Next, then click Finish.
9. Now select all data in the spreadsheet(upper left cell between a and 1).
10. Click data, sort, Sort by size.
11. Goto the bottom of the results. At this point you need to look at the highest size entries and these will be the ones you will look back in the registry and attempt to remove as much as possible to decrease the overall size.

D. Restoring Registry from System State

If you are one of those saavy computer users then you probably have a backup of your Windows OS prior to the failure. If not, sorry. To restore from backup please follow the steps in

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=309340.

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