wrongfullyaccuzd

Hey guys. I searched for various things dealing with this and couldn't find any previous threads that were just right, but if there is one, please, stop me now.

OK so my friend just called and said that when she turned her computer on, it gave her this message "with just a blue background":

"Stop. C000218. registry file failure. The registry cannot load the hize (file)..system root/system32/config/sam or its log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent or not writable.
Beginning dump of physical memory. Physical dump complete. Contact your system admin blah blah blah"

Now, she read this to me over the phone, so I'm assuming the "Stop" was stop error type of message, but I don't know for sure. This kind of error/physical memory dump/system root stuff is way over my head, so while I go try to do some research online about it, could you guys help me out? I'm way out of my league here. What caused this, and what can I do about it tomorrow when I go try to fix it?

She's on XP, by the way. And I told her to just turn it off and I would look at it later. Alt-F4-ing the window didn't work, and there was no "OK" button or anything, wouldn't budge.

Thanks a ton.

spindles

sounds like she is getting a blue screen of death (crash).

This page looks informative:
http://www.pcbanter.net/showthread.php?t=633139

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cyrnel

Those can be involved. Here's MS' general purpose recovery process.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;Q307545

It assumes she has bootable install disks. If it's a Dell or other OEM install things change and you'll probably need to come back for another version.

I'm assuming you'll be closer to the system to help? Trying to walk someone through this by phone would match one of my worst nightmares.

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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

wrongfullyaccuzd

Man you guys are quick.
Thanks for the links.
I went to the MS one and it says "Warning Do not use the procedure that is described in this article if your computer has an OEM-installed operating system." She has a Dell and I'm pretty positive it is an OEM OS. So should I absolutely not use Microsoft's troubleshooting?

"If you use the procedure that is described in this article, you may not be able to log back into the recovery console to restore the original registry hives." sounds pretty bad to me.

Or is MS just trying to cover their asses?

cyrnel

You're probably okay. Dell shows the same article of slightly different vintage:

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...en&s=dhs#en#us

If you're butt's on the line you should verify her system against their tech support - I'm not that familiar with any Dell peculiarities and would hate to see her go down the wrong path. It's going to depend on what she has on her system and what's on their install disks. Vanilla XP is easy but Dell embellishes their stuff. If nothing else punch her model and service tag into their lookup. Post it here, too. If you're really lucky, someone here works at a Dell shop and can provide specific assistance.

If it's any help, worst case (unless she formats or pulls a real gomer) all her data files are fine but she'll have to reinstall the OS and applications. Shouldn't even have to do that though.

Sorry that took so long. We went to War of the Worlds tonight. Sheez, now I see why it's struggling for viewers.

__________________
There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

wrongfullyaccuzd

Cyrnel, thanks a lot for the advice (on both the computer problem and War of the Worlds). Unfortunately I don't know her Dell model number and won't know until I go over there later, so I won't be able to post it on here until after the fact or until I've given up for the day in what I'm sure will be horrible, frustrating failure. But I will indeed look it up when I get the chance.

Basically I've taken a bunch of the links you guys have given me, weeded out what I think I can use, am going to print them out, and take them over there just to see what I can come up with. I'll let you know tonight or tomorrow how I fared.

Thanks again for all the help.

Redjake

I've got this a couple of times on a couple of different computers. First things first, unplug the computer, take the ram out, turn the computer on, turn it off again, put the ram back in, and turn it on. See if that fixes the problem. Then, if that doesn't work, unplug the cables that connect to the hard drive and CD-ROM, and plug them back in. Boot up. If THAT doesn't work, I would follow what the links above say. The first two remedies I listed have fixed the "beginning dump of physical memory" problem for me at least 10 or so times. Good luck.

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MikeSty

I've heard of the removing the RAM remedy, but unplugging the IDE drives? Hmmm I think it might work.

Redjake

Yep. You'd be surprised how many computers I've "fixed" with the "BDPM" problem as I call it (beginning dump of physical memory) just by opening the person's computer, unplugging everything, turning it on, plugging everything back up, and rebooting. It's a tedious process but it works a disgusting amount of times (for me at least). Another good one is the ol' "my PSU is dead because lightning hit it!" and they go crazy and all you have to do is unplug the cable from the PSU, discharge the power in the case by turning it on and off a couple of times unplugged, plug her back up, boot up perfectly. Classic

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oberon

Physical memory dumps are part of the debugging process, albeit not usually for an end user, but rather a developer (although I'm not sure what kind of tools exist under Windows for them). What it does is it stores the memory contents to disk so they can be analyzed after a reboot. So dumping memory isn't by itself a "problem" but rather a symptom. There are a lot of potential catastrophes that may cause OSs to dump physical memory.

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