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How do I recover from a corrupted registry in Windows XP?
Question: I was booting up my computer when the power went out half way through the boot process. I tried again, but it just keeps giving me a blue screen error message and tries to restart again. I've tried to press both F10 and F2 to put the bios in default settings and also to try and start the computer in safe mode, last known configuration and Repair but to no avail. I even tried to boot the computer from an XP CD and reinstall the OS, but when it gets to looking for former system installed it gives me an error message and says it cannot continue. I'm at a loss. I phoned microsoft and they couldn't help. If I can't get it booted up, all I want to do is to get the info on my C drive. Answer: Sounds like you have a corrupted registry, heres what you can do... WARNING - Do not use this procedure if your computer has an OEM-installed operating system. The system hive on OEM installations creates passwords and user accounts that did not exist previously. If you use these procedures, you may not be able to log back into the recovery console to restore the original registry hives.