Windows failed to load because the system registry file is missing or corrupt. Status:Oxc000014C

Hi Prateek Arora,

Your suggestion worked fine to me. Thank You very much.

Alessandro Claudio, Sao Paulo/Recife - Brazil

Hi Mark-i have seen most pc's from suppliers not correctly 'tuned' for performance -having only the most basic drivers installed to get it up and running,they always need motherboard disc with special bridging drivers to get the best out of 'em,the graphics drivers are usually marginal as well and need the most up to-date,also SATA2 rather than basic hd-drive,if you were given the disc with a new machine (rare),these have drivers specific to even the type of CPU-although all may need newer versions-you can bet that they'll still make ur pc fly compared to an out of the shop model;i've seen this develop as the need for personnel was absent;the peole that got into it had little idea of what to do.

To CLARIFY ABOVE POST AT END RE USB.....The USB stick is formatted as bootable -(this is an emergency recovery plan for ; i think it was Teri -put some tools on there ,anti-virus ,data -recovery, registery cleaner and Windows have a suite of tools available from Windows Live ,a free scanner each month for the newest threats as well and-depending on your needs -you may want network diagnosis tools , a simple GNU word processor,-(free public licenced)-an unzip program such as winrar----[data -recovery program ,in case hdd dies-usually still able to retrieve data]....a TYPOin above post said 'SHOULD LOOK LIKE THIS-- d:>. and good luck to all,

Hi Teri,Mark and others -i hope ther's somthn here for all of you- and soz 2 hear about your problem,unfortunately you've gone past the 'easy' recovery steps and complicated things-(@mark)Regarding xp boot-if the disc is formatted  as NTFS-(rather than the old Fat16, Fat32)-well ,you're in luck there as the disc and hddrive are at least compatible-......as i said  above re -you've gone too far for the quick and easy,here is a way to get a dozen or so boot options/repair/restore/safe mode/safe mode with networking,bootlogging,debug,driver signature blah blah blah----well,about 2 seconds after u turn your pc or laptop on,(despite screen saying f2 and f12 (my toshiba does this for bios and recovery disks-(if you made1)-ignore that -you should have a splash screen of some sort- hit f8,to get the above options including system restore,safe/safe with command/safe with networking,at least this will get u into your system and not knowing enough about your situation-it is not easy to comment further----if ,for example ,u boot to safe mode,do u know how to access your different partitions? from the command prompt -type dir/w/p    this will show you the disc data and programs,maybe some tools,you might be in c:\windows\system32> after starting in 'safe' mode with command prompt,to try and find if your partitions are intact:, to access some tools from here -dir/w/p    the w is a WIDE switch and p is a PAUSE  (so the contents don't rush past),if you can't use anything (tools or programs)-type help .at least this will explain how to use the tools(if u r in your windows directory or at a command prompt from way back ,ms-dos).if u have a d: partition, just type d: and hit enter,  to go to the 'root' of the drive , cd\ and hit enter, then it should look like d:/>  ....then dir/p or dir/w/p to inspect the contents----do this for a:  and e: and maybe f: if you have multiple drives and partitions-you may be able to find n fix your O.S. or at least put a fresh install on another drive that won't interfere with wanted assignments or woteva-you also read the files and directories from your cd-dvd this way,---Now-to ACCESS a directory named toolz, you would type cd tools , eg on your dvd drive-    now to get back to the root ,either cd\ or cd.. (if you are in say d:\windoze\system\toolz and want to get back to 'system' directory, this is when cd. is most usefull,otherwise cd\ will take you to the 'start' of the disc or hd,-----   cd. and cd.. take u backwards 1 or 2 steps, hope this gives some general manouverability to several of the posters,--ALSO if u can't format all your drives cos some are greyed out-best to just get 1 up n running first,drivers can be sorted later as well,from control panel----system....format a usb stick as a boot drive with some tools -some pc mag site should be able to help u with this...i'm going for dinner-good luck!!