ML 350 cannot boot into safe mode f8

[chad rodriguez]

My server is crashing here is the error once in the windows start up screen (windows server 2003 standard).
STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The system cannot load the hive (file):
\SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE
or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writeable.
dump of physical memory
physical memory dumped

NEED HELP@

[chad rodriguez]

Troubleshooting steps so far that haven't worked:
chkdsk /p/r/f

[Pedro O.]

Sounds to me like registry corruption, but it might be because of bad clusters where the registry files are written on your hard drive. Since you already ran chkdsk, verfy if there were errors fixed. If they were, reboot your computer, press F8 before the Windows logo appear, and select "Last Known Good Configuration", which should bring the backup copy of your registry, and load your server correctly.

It will be a good idea to create an ASR disk afterwards.

[chad rodriguez]

I hit f8 and it doesn't go to safemode etc. goes to drive config or something to that effect. chkdsk's never completly ran just come back saying nothing wrong.