Laptop has Blue screen of death' - sort of...

LondonDiva

Help!

My laptop's plug got pulled out a couple of days ago when it was on mains power only and when I plugged it back in, it's been stuck in a loop of not booting and then very briefing flashing a blue screen before going back again .... Is it dead?

When I turn the laptop on, it does the normal booting screen of with writnig on black and then a message comes up 'Invalid boot file'. I then have a choice to start it up in 'start at last normal...' or in safe mode.

When I choose either normal or safe mode, the screen goes blank / black but is still on as though loading, for about two minutes and then I get a very, very brief flash of blue before it goes back to the 'last known configuration / media test failure' screen.

It goes round and round and I can't get past this section.

The blue screen that I've been trying to read starts with 'the registry...' but is so quick., I can't make out anything else before it goes back to the config screen.

HELP:(

waddler_8

Start it up and continually press F8. You should reach the Advanced boot options screen. Disable automatic restart on system failure, then reboot - This should give you time to read the blue screen and let us know exactly what it says.

smos585

If you tell us which Windows version you're using it could help. Also if you tell us what system you have + model no etc, we can tell how yr system is probably constructed, and advise you better.

Yr hdd has probably been affected, it is just how we should advise you what is the best process to check it out and hopefully fix it.

LondonDiva

Thanks for your suggestions: The laptop is a Toshiba and I'm using Windows XP - unfortunately that's as much info I have as I'm not that techy and it was a present a few years back.

The message on the blue screen reads:

STOP: C0000218 {registry file failure}
registry cannot load the hive (file): \systemRoot\system32\config\SECURITY or its log ot alternate
It is corrupt, abscent or not writable

Beginning dump of physical memory - physical memory dump complete

waddler_8

Do you have a windows XP disk?

robmar0se

Okay....we need to do a couple of things (i) check the hdd for errors, and (ii) restore the system registry.

In XP, you need to load the recovery console from an (any) XP cd, and boot from it. Once in I would run chkdsk c:/r to check and repair any corrupted sectors. To recover the registry see here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

If you don't have ready access to the XP disc then get the mini-xp software from here http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

waddler_8

...or create a Recovery console CD using this utility and run chkdsk from that.

Tutorial with screenshots here.