Vista - TOP: C0000218 {Registry File Failure): how to fix it in Vista Ulti

I have a very similar problem, but a different motherboard.
Check out what is in common here and maybe we can get
to the bottom of this.


OS: MS Vista 64 Home Premium
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+, 2812 Mhz,
MOBO: ASUS M2N32 WS Pro (nForce 590 SLI MCP chipset)
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, ASUS M2N32 WS Pro ACPI BIOS Revision 1601,
6/22/2007
Relevant BIOS Options: Cool&Quite: DISABLED, AMD!LIVE: DISABLED
Disk Controller: NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller
Disks: (2) Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10000rpm Internal SATA Hard
Drive, RAID 0
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
RAM: 4 sticks of OCZ OCZ2T8002GK, Titanium Dual Channel 2048MB PC6400
DDR2 800MHz EPP Memory (4x 1024MB) running at 5-5-5-15-2T, 2.2v (rated
at 4-4-4-15-1T but fails at that speed, another sad story)

Observations: with all 4 sticks of ram (=4gb) booting into vista causes
BSOD as follows:

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

If I select any 2 sticks and run at 2gb, I have no problems.

Also note that with 4db, if I try to boot into safe mode the above BSOD
gets triggered.
However, if I try to boot into safe mode, sometimes (25%) I can
successfully boot in normal mode immediately after resetting. Somehow
attempting safe mode clears
something that allows a subsequent normal boot some of the times.

I believe this points to vista problem dealing with SATA RAID, and 4gb
configurations.
I actually believe the problem was introduced by a MS update (I do not
know which one).
My machine worked fine for several months, and the only thing that
changed were the
MS updates. Then one day, the BSOD at boot just started. Thanks for the
hint that it was
related to 4gb. At least now I know I can remove 2gb if I really need
to boot into safe mode.

( Has anyone tinkered with enabling spread spectrum to the ram? )


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startzell
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startzell that is interesting!

Now it looks like that the common thing for all of us having this
problem is rather that we all have 4GB and running in RAID
configuration on the boot disk...

It is interesting also that your problems started after a few months of
running Vista which indicates more to a problem with some of the Vista
updates?

Maybe someone could try with a clean install WITHOUT installing the
updates and see if it works better with 4GB and RAID.

However, I dont know if we still need to install the 4GB memory update,
KB929777 to get it to work or if it is actually this update causing the
problem?

I saw somewhere else where someone suggested to do a clean install with
only 2GB and then install the memory patch and then finally install the
remaining 2 GB sticks to get full 4GB. Has anyone of you tried it?


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CrazyFin
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Hello All

I have had this issue since May last year, BSOD with 4GB of RAM with a Gigabyte MOBO. Nothing I have done so far has resolved the issue (See previous posts). I have been running with 3GB without issue since September 2007
Last night I installed the new Vista SP1.
It is an all singing all dancing cure for Vista problems, so they say, and I plan to put in the forth 1GB stick tonight.
My question is this, has anyone installed the SP1 and tried again with 4GB ?



Mick B

Hmm, I just answered my own question. I put the 4th stick in and booted up. BSOD on the first boot. Strangely enough it was an error code I have not seen before:

STOP 0x00000051 Registry_Error

A quick Google search and I found this:

'This indicates a Registry or Configuration Manager problem. An I/O error may have occurred while the Registry was trying to read one of its files (caused by hardware or file system problems). This message might also appear due to a memory management error (more common in earlier versions of Windows NT).

I really can't be bothered trying to get 4GB to run on this MOBO any more. I have 3GB and if someone does find a fix for this then great, I will not be wasting any more of my time. Has anyone managed to run XP 64 with 4GB of RAM on this board ?
Mick

Damn! Got the exact same problem. BUT i'm not running any RAID.

Speccs:

Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz @ 1600MHz
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P35-DS3 mainboard)
4GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (512MB)
Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Ultimate x64.


Please can someone find a soulution to this. It's driving me crazy!

Hello PiXL

I am not using RAID either. Just 2 independent disks. They are on the 2 SATA ports that would support RAID though.

Mick B

Hmm Ok. I've only got one IDE disk.

So the problem is Vista then? Maybe i should try the 32bit version.

Hi

You could try Vista 32Bit but then it would be pointless having 4GB of RAM installed because 32 bits is not enough to address 4GB of RAM. This link explains it in more detail

64-bit Windows Vista Is Not Enough to Address 4 GB of RAM - Not even by far, but find out what else you need - Softpedia

Mick

Just adding a bit more volume to the work-around, regarding the Raid
configuration problem. I was having the same problems you guys were,
except mine seemed to me intermittent. It *seemed* to be related to
nothing in particular, except it would happen most often when I
installed something new or a windows update.

It would usually reboot once or twice and then go in with no problems.
Unfortunately, and stupidly, Vista (Mine is Ultimate) seems to default
to auto-restart on a system error so I never really realized what the
problem was until this morning, when it kept doing it no matter what,
and I booted into Safe Mode to mess around with it and disabled the
auto-restart feature.

At first I didn't think the fix would work, my boot drive was not in
the raid slot, but when I peeked in my case I saw that my 750gig
external (hooked up with an SATA cable through a little pre-built hole
in my case) was hooked up through there, my secondary drive was not. I
switched it out and, wouldn't you know it, no problems.

The short version is, -do not use the G-SATA ports if you want to run
with 4gigs of ram- In my case it isn't a problem, my previous machine
had a RAID array until I realized it was a little stupid to run in RAID
unless I was using it for backup purposes. Glad I didn't commit my drive
to it this time, if I had had to do a re-install it would have been XP.
Despite its supposed problems i'm really happy with Vista and have not
had any issues\growing pains aside from this intermittent error, the
re-boot issue was about to change my mind though. I'll make sure to
post back if this happens again.

Now, if nobody minds, I'm going to put some silly Google strings here,
I only found it after I searched for the exact registry path from the
error, hopefully others can find this extremely helpful thread:
Vista keeps rebooting
Vista registry crash
Vista security hive corrupt
Vista gigabyte mobo motherboard

P.S. Unless you're seriously hard-core and are stringing two Raptor
drives in a raid-array or something you really should consider NOT
using a RAID-0 array, the benefits really do not outweigh your
increased risk for data loss on a desktop computer. If you want high
performance invest in a Raptor (or similiar high-speed drive) for your
boot\gaming drive and use a separate drive for your data. Raptors are
not nearly as expensive as they once were.

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V


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Hello Vassi

Thanks for the information; as you know this problem has been annoying many users for some time. Your solution sounds plausible, however I would like to see your system to remain stable for a week or so before I get too excited.
Please let us know how you get on, and give it a load of reboots for the next few days if you don't mind.

Mick