Registry File Failure?

[Nicer]

everytime i try to start my laptop computer, i get this message on a blue screen (although, it does not look like a traditional Blue Screen of Death)...i've tried reseting to the last settings that worked, but i end up at this same screen:
--------------------
STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The registry cannot load 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 administrator or technical support group for further assistance.
---------------------
now...i THINK i got this message a few months ago...it was on this same type of screen but i cannot remember if the text was the same...

i called Dell...and after the standard 2hour wait, they helped me solve the problem...this is what i did:

they had me boot to a command prompt...this is where my first question comes in...how do you do this? when i press F8 during startup, i get the choice of options, and the only one that looks like what i need is "boot in safemode with command prompt"...but if i do this, i end up back at the same blue screen i described above...so...is there another way to get to a command prompt?

after this, i entered a command (i can't remember what it was, sorry sad.gif )and then had to wait for maybe an hour while watching some percentage go up and up...when this was done, my problem was fixed...

i'm sorry for being so vague, but this is all i can remember off the top of my head...the lady on the phone at Dell said it was a very complex problem (that she could not understand/explain to me)...so i doubt this is caused by a virus...any clue as to what command i ran? does this make sense to anybody?? it certainly doesn't make sense to me...thanks guys

[caperjack]

Hi,Welcome to DaniWeb ,this SITE might help .

[odell]

I am getting this same problem with my Dell laptop Vostro 1310; I've tried all the safe mode options to no avail. I'm encouraged that someone had the same problem and solved it, but I need to know what the solution was. I see this post was 2005 and now it's 2010 so I'm assuming the problem did get solved.

[caperjack]

I am getting this same problem with my Dell laptop Vostro 1310; I've tried all the safe mode options to no avail. I'm encouraged that someone had the same problem and solved it, but I need to know what the solution was. I see this post was 2005 and now it's 2010 so I'm assuming the problem did get solved.

hi ,please start a new thread, as this is really old ,and please post your error message and explain your problem clearly thanks

[gerbil]

If this was the case "then had to wait for maybe an hour while watching some percentage go up and up..." then i assume he was watching the chkdsk screen.
If you can enter safe mode with prompt, then run:
chkdsk /f
If you can not enter safe mode then use the Recovery Console [via your XP installation disk] and run:
chkdsk /r
Note the DIFFERENCE.