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    I have been reviewing many of the threads here in the forum, and I do not seem to have any of the issues that have been reported.  My system has been running fine for over a year.  However that all changed once I decided to try WHS Avast.  At the end of the trial period, I opted to remove the trial and buy my son his graphing calculator instead.  I removed the Avast add-in like I was supposed to, but it would not remove completely.  I still had Avast services running telling me that it was out of date.  I was not able to see the Avast in the Add-ins any longer, or in Add or Remove programs.  Basically, I just gave up as it was only a minor distraction during reboots, that are few and far between.

    All of the sudden, I could not connect.  Upon going down to the garage and connecting at the console I received a message on the screen that no hard drive was found.  I dusted out the case, double checked my cables, and rebooted.  Everything looks good until I got the BSOD, with the following error:
    STOP:  c0000218 {Registry File Failure}  The registry cannot load the hive (file):
    \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or it Log or alternate.  It is corrupt, absent or not writable.
    Beginning dump of physical memory.
    Dumping Physical Memory to Disk: 100%
    Physical memory dump complete.
    Contact your system administrator or technical support group for assistance.

    The system is a home built -  Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E6550 2.33GHz,  2 x 500GB drives, 2GB RAM. 
    I am pretty good at fixing systems that I am in, but not a system that I am no longer able to access.  Any hope besides reinstalling the OS?  I would like to not lose all my data.

    vinny2step
    Thursday, October 22, 2009 5:41 AM

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    The only supported way to fix Windows Home Server installations, which are not longer booting, is to boot from the WHS DVD and select a Server Reinstall (not a new installation).
    This will wipe only the C: drive (together with user accounts, Windows Updates, add-ins etc) but leave the data intact.
    If a server reinstall is not offered, you may have to provide the drivers for the SATA controller up to two times during installation, if it is running not in IDE mode.
    Helpful may also be to read the FAQ How to recover data after server failure.

    In your situation - a registry hive damaged - no other method will work anyway. But you should check for the reason - the registry gets often destroyed due to one of the following scenarios:
    - a hard crash of the server, maybe due to power outage
    - faulty sectors on the disk
    - faulty memory

    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Thursday, October 22, 2009 9:12 AM
    Moderator

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  • Question
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    The only supported way to fix Windows Home Server installations, which are not longer booting, is to boot from the WHS DVD and select a Server Reinstall (not a new installation).
    This will wipe only the C: drive (together with user accounts, Windows Updates, add-ins etc) but leave the data intact.
    If a server reinstall is not offered, you may have to provide the drivers for the SATA controller up to two times during installation, if it is running not in IDE mode.
    Helpful may also be to read the FAQ How to recover data after server failure.

    In your situation - a registry hive damaged - no other method will work anyway. But you should check for the reason - the registry gets often destroyed due to one of the following scenarios:
    - a hard crash of the server, maybe due to power outage
    - faulty sectors on the disk
    - faulty memory

    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Thursday, October 22, 2009 9:12 AM
    Moderator
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    Olaf,

    Thank you!!

    This worked rather well.  After running the WHS Reinstall, all I had to to was add the accounts for my family members in the WHS Console, and reconnect the computers on the network.   All computer backups were successful last night.

    The only thing that I was missing was the Add-ins that I had in the WHS Console before the crash.  I still had the installers in my shared folders, so reinstall of those Add-ins only took minutes.

    Again, thank you for your assistance!

    vinny2step
    Seattle, WA.
    Friday, October 23, 2009 4:56 PM