After booting up, I'm getting a blue screen that says "Stop: C000218 (Registry File Failure). The Registry cannot load the hive (File) \Systemroot\System 32\Config\Software or it's log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent, or not writable". I have been using Windows XP for several years. I had orginally upgraded from Windows 98 to Windows XP. I put the Win XP Upgrade CD in the drive to boot up with, so that I could get into the Dos panel to copy the files, (like the other recommendations in this site had said to do) but it still keeps going back to the blue screen. I don't think the Win XP upgrade CD has the recovery stuff on it. How can I resolve this problem if I don't have a recovery disk. I don't have the Win98 CD. I appreciate any help you can give. Please be as precise and detailed as possible as I do not know much about this kind of stuff. Thank you.

First off XP has no MS-DOS, therefore no facility from an XP CD to copy your old files. The CLi is NT COMMAND PROMPT. Forget Win98 forget MS-DOS too old especially if your drive file system is NTFS. You need a XP CD which is bootable and can access the recovery console see: http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.ph...

Enter the bios setup routine. You should see what Key(s) to depress on one of the first screens. Then find the screen with the 'Boot sequence' and make sure that the CD drive is first. Then you should be able to boot the CD and get to the 'Recovery Console' where you can enter DOS commands. But I'm worried that you won't be able to fix your system that way. If necessary, you can try a 'Repair Install'. But if the Registry is messed up, A 'Repair' might not work, or it might cause you to lose some of your data/programs. How to do a 'Repair' install

Have you tried System Restore or Last Known Good Configuration from the Boot Options? OR?http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830084 There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

Thank you all for replying. Peter suggested getting a XP CD which is bootable. Where can I get a bootable XP CD from? I tried selecting the 'last known good configuration' and it did not work. I'm not sure how to do the 'system restore' as suggested by Dumbob. I'm afraid to do the 'repair install' if it will not work or cause more problems. If I can't find a XP CD bootable recovery disk, I may have to take it to the Geek Squad (Yikes, I hate to do that. They charge too much money).