HELP! STOP: C0000218 {Registry File Failure}

[scott]

Ok, so last night I installed Skype on my laptop, and everything went fine...or so I thought.

This morning I get up to check my email and bam, my computer is fucked. Won't boot in Safe Mode, Last Known Good, etc. and it keeps displaying this:

STOP: C0000218 {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive (file):\System Root\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or its log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

Ok, so I say not a problem. I'll get on the other computer and look this up and see how to fix it. So I found a fix here:

John Barnett's Windows XP Help and Support

and it seems pretty straightforward. Now comes the problem. When Windows Recovery asks for my Admin Password, it keeps telling me it's wrong, even though I know it's right.

So I'm no further 12 hours later. My bro was supposed to bring home a 2.5" USB drive adapter so I could slave it to my other computer and just dump the contents then reformat, but he didn't.

So, anyone here got something that will reset my password?

I found this but they have yet to reply to my email.

Windows Password Recovery Key - unlocks Administrator account, resets secure boot options

If anyone has any suggestions please let me know!

 

[scott]

Well anyways CompUSA had a 2.5" USB HD adapter for $20, so I'm dumping all valuable data to my PC and will proceed from there.

 

[Xrproto]

try admin for pass or nothing at all

 

[ehlo]

Try this software, it's free and works well: http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

 

[che1959]

I use a dual boot linux/windows xp. No matter how fucked up Windows gets, I can always access the data from Ubuntu Linux.

I also always keep a Knoppix CD around for cases like these when I need to get in and rescue files when Windows has crapped.

But I never have those problems anymore since I use Ubuntu Linux about 90% of the time.

 

[scott]

Try this software, it's free and works well: http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Thanks. I'll try this after I finish dumping all my files.

 

[scott]

Well that didn't work. Since my windows was not shutdown properly the program will not write to the registry.

Looks like I'm off to reload Windows....