Power out/surge. Hard drive crash? Registry Error

So my family's computer has been acting up lately, being a big frustration and this power surge didn't help at all. I turn the computer on and at the login screen it says something about recovering a file from the system registry by a copy or something and it was successful in doing so. So I click ok and I log in and then whenever it wants to, a blue screen briefly pops up and then the computer reboots. I managed to take a picture of it to find out what's up.

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k215/Someone0001/P9150062.jpg

The thing is we haven't recently installed any new hardware or software and that's why i'm clueless. This whole thing happened because of a power surge. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum

 

if possible can you attach the minidump log found in c:\windows\minidump. It would have the most recent date the BSOD occured.

from the screenshot you posted, the error refers to the configuration manager not being able to verify the hive data

this is what i found from this link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815265

more information is needed such as model of machine and OS type

 

Well, not good news. I just spent about 20 minutes researching this problem on MSKB, TechNet, and good ol' Google. It seems that there is no fix for this. A few people have had success by running disk error checking from the Recovery Console (info below), but most people had to reformat the drive, wipe it clean and install fresh Windows. You can recovery your data however... If you have an external hard drive, a 2nd hard drive, or 2 CD drives and one is a burner, you can boot to a "live CD" like the UBCD4Win or a bootable Linux CD like Knoppix. You can then copy your data to the external or 2nd hard drive, or burn your data to a CD/DVD using the 2nd CD/DVD drive. The UBCD4Win loads to an environment that runs just like Windows, so it won't be foreign and weird, plus it has tons of useful applications built-in (like burning software and file copying software and data recovery software). Knoppix is a Linux OS that runs exclusively from CD. It's visually and functionally similar to Windows, but is also different in many ways too. Personally, I recommend the UBCD4Win for most people as it is easier to navigate due to the familiar Windows interface. The how-to-build-the-CD guide can be found here.

How to run disk error checking:
Boot to your Windows install CD and get into the Recovery Console. At the prompt, type chkdsk c: /r and press Enter. CHKDSK will take some time, so be patient. I've seen it take over 8 hours. It may look like it's locked up; you might see the percentage counter go backwards; this is normal. It has not locked up, and sometimes it goes backwards. No worries. Let it finish. Type exit when it's done to restart your PC, and remove the Windows disc. Cross your fingers and pray!

NOTE: there's a space before and after the "c:" in the command above.

GOOD LUCK!

 

Big thanks to both of you. My dad has a little knowledge of computers so after fiddling with it, he decided to run system restore and now it's running ok for now. It's not crashing or anything. To avoid something like this in the future, since the computer needs it anyway, would backing up files and reformatting completely maybe help?

 

making sure you have a back file of your data is very important. Without that, you can lose a ton of stuff. Especially if you store pictures and personal movies on that computer.

Reformating might not be needed but you will need to make sure all the updates have been installed and try to troubleshoot the issues that arise. majorgeeks.com will definitely help you along the way to restoring the computer back to a normal working environment.

Glad to hear that your dad was able to get the computer back online. That is the biggest hurdle.