OK, first of all, I am using Windows2000 Professional Edition. And I BUILT the computer myself.

The first thing is that I got this error. The computer looks like it's gonna boot fine, the Windows2000 logo comes up and everything and then you get the blue screen of death with a message that says:

STOP: C0000218 {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive (file):\System Root\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or its log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

And then it starts booting up again and it just keeps doing that.

Well, I've been reading about this and there are several causes. One of them could be a bad Memory and the other is that the Registry is corrupted.

I was trying to do the Registry fix and it requires inserting the Windows CD and then hitting "R" to do a Repair of a Windows Installation and go into the Recovery Console. Well, when I hit "R" at this point, the computer tells me there are NO HARD DRIVES INSTALLED and that it cannot continue. The same happens if I choose a clean installation.

What bothers me is that when the computer is in the first stages of booting I can clearly see that it read the two Hard drives currently installed. It says something like CH1 Master:80Yblahblahblah.. and a CH2 something like that. And also if I am not booting from the CD, it does start booting from the Hard Drive, because, like I said above, I get the Windows Logo until I get the blue screen (so at these early stages it IS seeing the Hard Drives!).

Another thing is that I went into the BIOS and in Primary Master and Secondary Master, it doesn't say or give me the option to select a Hard Drive. It only has like Auto, CD, Floppy and a few other things. One of them is like a Manual thing, but I don't recall having to do that in the past. One point that I should mention is that I am using SATA Hard Drives with the SATA cables. I don't know if that's relevant to this.

Yet another thing is that the SATA cables don't seem to be holding up pretty well, they are pretty loose and I try to make sure they are connected, but there is no "clicking" feature or anything and they become loose fairly easily.

Can you give me some pointers as to how to proceed? Maybe I have to do some manual configuration in the BIOS that I don't remember doing in the past. I don't know.. I seem to have a vague recollection that when I first built the computer, I had to put one of these hardrives (or maybe both) into ANOTHER computer (which doesn't have SATA drives) in order to get them formatted and to install the O/S, but I don't know if I'm making it up.

Any help is appreciated!

I believe you have to install the sata drivers in the bios setup or make sure they are enabled there.

Thanks for your reply, Enthusiast! Do you mind telling me how I can do that? I am no expert at all. I am a very good learner, though.

OK, Apparently I need to be more specific. What I meant was how do I install the sata drivers in the bios setup or make sure they are enabled there?
Thanks!

Are you using a seperate sata controller in a pci slot or is sata built into your motherboard? Did you set it up as a raid array or not?

If incorporated on the motherboard:
You should have had sata drivers come with either the motherboard cd or the sata drive itself.

When you set up the computer originally you had to set it for sata drives in the bios settings.

Do it again.

If on a pci sata controller - follow the installation for the card.

See if the following MS support article helps:
Serial ATA in the Microsoft Operating System Environment
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/stora...ialATA_FAQ.mspx

Well, I was finally able to boot up. I used the motherboard's manufacturer's drivers and was able to get the system to recognize the HD's. However, I had to load the original SOFTWARE hive and now I have a lot of errors. Like, if I try to start certain programs (any MS Office application, for example) it gives me an error. I understand this happens because the system doesn't know where these files are, but I KNOW there has to be a way of repairing the old file (I saved it while doing a "Repair" Installation) so that I the system can see where all these files and executables are. I refuse to believe that even though I have this 18MB SOFTWARE.old file, it is completely useless. I believe there should be a way I can get in there and edit this file so that the system can read it again. The problem is, I don't know a lot about this. I am trying to use a "restore" or a "Load Hive" command on Registry Editor (either regedit or regedt32) and it give me an error that I don't have enough priviledges or that the file is being used by another program. This file (SOFTWARE.OLD) is encrypted so I cannot go line by line comparing. I would do this, if this was a solution. However, at this point not even this is a solution.

I wanted to try to load the hive and then do an Export so I can have it in ASCII text that I can edit, but I don't know how to do this or if this will work. But again, I WANT TO believe that there is a way that I can get into this file (SOFTWARE.OLD) and edit and maybe fix what is wrong in it, or at least recover most of it!!!

As I mentioned earlier, I am using Win2K. I want to install XP after all this is done. Do you think installing XP may help? Meaning, if I install XP, will I still have to RE-INSTALL all the software? This is what I am trying to avoid!

Thanks!

If you install XP as a fresh install - not an update, which is preferable especially since you are experiencing problems in Win2K, you will have to install all the software again anyway, so you may as well do that.

As far as reloading the original registry - did you try "last known good configuration" which is one of the safe mode options? (I don't know if renaming the registry as you did will affect that or not or if Windows created another backup of the last good boot as it should have)

Yes, I did try the "Last known good configuration" option, but since I did that AFTER I booted it up after doing these changes, it did not change anything.

Thanks for your help. Let me know if you think of anything else.

Try remaning those files back to what they originally were.