windows xp wont let me log in

[sboel]

Hello, I have an issue. I restarted my computer and instead of going straight to my desktop it went to a user select screen. There is owner, and when I press on it it says loading settings then goes to my wallpaper and then goes back to the log on screen, says saving settings and is back at the user log on screen, blue, with 'turn of computer' in the bottm left etc. I tried safe mode and it comes up with admin logon as well as owner log on, and the same happens when I press on admin account.

I have tried system recovery pressing f10 during startup. it says 'loading hp pc sytem recovery' and then screen goes blue, and it says:

top:c0000218{registry file failure}
the registry cannot load the hive(file):
system root/system32/config/security
or its log or alternate
it is corrupt, absent or not writable

I have tried safe mode, and the option when you select windows xp home edition or windows recovery console. The windows recovery console seems to work but i dont know what to do. It says select 1, 2 or 3.

1) d:/ minint
2) d:/ 1386
3) c:/windows

After some research, i think it is something to do with my paging file. When I try to log on, and it says loading personal settings, then instead of loading desktop it says saving personal settings and returns to log on screen, it may be that windows xp boot partition drive letter does not match the drive letter assigned during the initial windows xp setup.

I would be extremely grateful for anyones help.

Thank you

 

[KennyG]

You definitly have some corrupt files in your XP install. You're best bet would be to boot of the XP CD and do a repair.

 

[fsbo]

What was happening before the problem started? Did you add another hard drive to the PC, install another version of Windows hoping to dual boot or anything like that?