Help Anyone !

[musicthom]

Afternoon guys a wee problem here one of my friends asked me to have a look at his computer and when i did i got this message

Stop: c0000218 {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive (file): \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or its log or alternate

now i have done som reasearch on this and went here Windows xp from A-Z

and To resolve this issue, use one of the following methods.

Use the Recovery Console Tool: now this is where the problems start he threw away all the dics he got with it and yes i have told him he is an idiot for doing that is there any way around this

the computer is an Acer Aspire E500 Desktop a few years old and well out of warrenty

[thelevellers]

A quick google reveals that it isn't necessarily an Acer specific recovery console, that it could just be the windows (i'm guessing XP) recovery tool, which is easy to get hold of, if you (or another friend) have a copy you should be able to use that, you shouldn't need his license key to just recover/de-break stuff...

Another option would be d/ling a copy of XP from the almighty internet - but that being illegal (even if you are using it to fix a legit copy of windows) I wouldn't recommend it!

Good luck, I'm assuming it's preventing you getting the data of it? Otherwise I'd say screw it and reinstall using (if it's still accessible) his key and someone else CD...

Oh, or you could just switch to a good operating system like Fedora