Strangest Win2k problem I've seen 1

[bigugly]

OK, I've got a good one I've been puzzling over for the past few days.

I have an existing win2k server whose video card (Hercules 3d Prophet 4000 XT) needs to be replaced. When I pop in the new card (MSI nvidia based card) everything is fine until I install the new driver. After driver installation and reboot, I get a blue screen with the following error:

C0000218 Registry file failure
Registry cannot load the hive (file):\system root\system32\config\
Software or its log or alternate. It is corrupt absent or not writable.

I'm stumped, it doesn't matter which card/driver I install, I still get the error upon driver install and reboot. If I don't try to install the driver for the card, the box operates normally (abeit in vga mode because there's no driver for the new card).

Things I've tried:
- Removing the old Prophet 3d driver through safe mode
- Running Microsoft's registry repair utility (the one that runs off of the modified installation disk 6)
- Running regclean
- I've also experimented with installing other types of cards/drivers. I've installed a sound card with drivers, no problem. I've installed a network card with drivers, no problem. It seems very specific to any type of video card/driver that is installed

I'm stuck at this point.

Any ideas, folks?

 

[3143]

Check the file \system root\system32\config\ and check the user rights.

 

[falinxcopernicus]

Make sure you are logged in as the local administrator on the machine. It is trying load an OS file so you should make sure that you have full rights. It is probably all that is needed and will happen only once after you have re-installed the driver.

 

[bigugly]

The funny thing is, I am logging in as administrator. Still no luck.

I'll be poking at it today.

Any other ideas, folks?

 

[bigugly]

Oh, forgot to mention... I get the blue screen before windows boots to GUI.

 

[ricpinto]

I think it's compatibility issue, Is your driver is "Microsoft digitally signed drivers"?

http://windows.about.com/library/weekly/aa000827a.htm

 

[marsd]

Have you removed all the .sys and .inf files from the
previous card installation? Have you run a check against
the registry using regedits search feature for entries with the previous cards descriptive string?
I've had similar problems and finding the offending entries and their references solved it.

 

[bigugly]

OK, I solved it. Can't believe it, but I solved it. I've gotta describe the fix, 'cause it's good...

After hours and hours of troubleshooting, the cause seemed to obviously be the registry, specifically the software hive which was a whopping 175mb in size. At first I didn't pay too much attention to that hive file size as being a problem (backups show it's been that big since 2002). How to shrink/fix it became the question. I used the MS registry repair utility. No luck. I used the MS regclean utility. Again, no luck. I followed Microsoft's instructions for copying the hive back and forth to "Eliminate registry file fragmentation". That didn't work either. Then a happy accident happened. I had a utility on that server called "Erunt". It's a little freeware program that allows on the fly registry backups. Anyway, I was in the process of moving hives around and turned to Erunt to make a backup to do so. After the backup, I went to copy and move the problem software hive and discovered that it had shrunk from 175mb to 12mb! Mission accomplished. Sure enough, restored the registry from that backup set and everything is right as rain!

I love it when things go my way.

Thanks for the help offered.

 

[jcetoute]

Bigugly

can you tell me how you can Erunt from Windows Recovery Console if unable to boot in safe mode?

Thanks in advance for your help.