XP-Strange boot error

[Kamuix]

After windows just finished loading i got a strange blue screen that said something about Windowsroot/system32/config/SOFTWARE. I figured the file it specified was corrupt or something so I booted from another HD in the same computer, for some reason it would not let me into C:/ (the icon did show up)which was the drive i couldn't boot from earlier, it said it was corrupt. Then i thought that maybe my HD was dieing.

Then i went and used an external case to see if another computer of mine would detect it/if it would work etc...Anyway! It detected it then took awhile to show up, about 1 minute, ussually only takes about 10 seconds or so.

I tried replacing the file SOFTWARE in system32/config but after that when i tried to boot it, it just sat at a black screen before the login screen is suppost to come up

So does it look like my hard drive could be having issues? or my OS

Thanks for any help!

 

[subtle]

Since you did not describe the blue screen error too good (like error code), I'm not sure what exactly happened but try that:
(This is fix for: "C0000218:Registry file failure. The registry cannot load the hive file System Root\System32\Config\Software ")

boot into the recovery console from and type the following:

cd system32
cd config
ren software software.bak
ren system system.bak
cd ..
cd ..
cd repair
copy software c:\windows\system32\config
copy system c:\windows\system32\config

This restores XP to brand new. You have all data, but a fresh registry. Whatever
you do, DON'T REBOOT UNTIL YOU'RE DONE WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING!!! It will probably
die again.

From here.

 

[terii]

Sometimes the error you are seeing is not closely related to the actual problem. I have seen that same problem several times and have been able to fix some of them by going to the recovery console and typing fixmbr and fixboot. Usually I will do a chkdsk /r while I am there. As I said this works most of the time but not all the time.