Solved Need help with STARTUP ERRORS in REGISTRY in Windows 8.1!

All of the sudden my ASUS laptop got me in a vicious infinite cycle of automatic repairs for the whole day. After meddling with command prompt I got it fixed at last. But I got stumbled into this kind of message:
RECOVERY
Your PC needs to be repaired
The operating system couldn't be loaded because the system registry file is missing or contrains errors.
File:\Windows\System32\config\system
Error codes: 0xc00000e9

I tried every other recovery options available in the screen but nothing happened!
Refresh option got into a nameless 'problem' and couldn't execute. Reset was unsuccessful. System restore was also failed because of the little space (around 15Mb lol) left in my C drive since the system hard drive's a SSD. Startup repair was a waste of time. And I don't have an external system repair drive right now.

If anyone knows how to fis this, preferably in command prompt since right now it's the only viable option as far as I know, please share with me! I'm in the middle of a deadline crisis and my laptop plays this on me!! Thanks in advance! You guys are my saviors!! :thumb:

Welcome to eight forums !!

Have you tried to do a System File Checker at Admin Command Prompt ? sfc /scannow

Then follow with a DISM in same command prompt dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
Copy and paste from here make sure put in right.

Run SFC again plus Dism.
Chances if hardware like drives (SSD) are o.k. may need to do a fresh install if above does not help. Low space left on SSD not ideal.

I ran sfc but it responded that: There was a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again.
And I'm pretty sure no matter how many times I restart the damn thing will just be the same.

When I ran your command line I got this response:
Error: 50
DISM does not support servicing Windows PE with the /online option
The DISM log file can be found at X:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log

And when I removed the /Online option I got another error response:
Error: 87
The cleanup-image (or restorehealth) option is unknown.
For more information, refer to the help by running DISM.exe /?

Not sure of a solution for this unless try SFC in safe mode, here is one type of solution

There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete

Try system file checker again after this solution.

Hi

System32\Config\System is a registry hive file which can't be fixed by running SFC or DISM. Usually there will be a backup copy of hive files which will be located on System32\Config\Regback folder. I would recommend to try restoring the hive files from that folder by following Startup Repair Infinite Loop Recovery - Windows 7 Help Forums. (ignore the title). The tutorial is for Win7 but the same procedure works with Win8.

Also you should free disk space before trying to repair if there is really only 15 MB is left. That might be the cause of Registry corruption. You can boot from a live Linux CD and move data to an external medium to save space.

Emergency Kit - save your files from a dead OS - Windows 7 Help Forums

Thank you for your solutions! Currently I'm downloading Mint Mate right now. I guess I have to rescue my documents first then I will try to fix the registry.

Since my SSD only has 25 Gbs I find it really hard to make any spare space. I have been putting the location of my AppData and Local folder to another drive since they take up too much space on my SSD. I have to constantly run disk cleanup and minimize the backups to maintain free space. I don't even have enough space to update my windows or do a clean computer refresh lol.

My laptop had one 25 Gb SSD and a 500 Gbs HDD the first time I bought it a year ago. I wonder if I can replace my SSD with a bigger one to at least run my windows freely without any hindrance.

You don't really need mint mate which is around 2GB. All you need is to download: Slacko Puppy Linux release which is a small version of Linux (160MB) then use: Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way to put it in a USB to boot from. And while you in Linux, you can also copy the back up registry: from C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack to C:\Windows\System32\config.

Although Puppy is small, i personally found it not working on all systems when compared to Mint. Also Puppy is not "SecureBoot" compatible but Mint is fully compatible. Since Mint includes proprietary hardware drivers, it has better chance to boot on wide range of Laptops ( i have seen latest version of Ubuntu which only include open source drivers failed to initialize X server on laptops with switchable graphics ).Those are the reasons i prefer Mint over Puppy.

Btw, "Paragon" has a free rescue kit which is based on WinPE so offers better hardware compatibility than any live Linux distro can.

https://www.paragon-software.com/home/rk-free/keyscenarios.html

I almost forgot about it. Otherwise i would have suggested it in the first place.

I tried to run Rufus with the Linux ISO to my USB drive but ran into this error. Anyone knows how to fix this?
Error: ISO extraction failure

This is the log file:
Formatting (FAT32)...
Using cluster size: 4096 bytes
Quick format was selected
Creating file system...
Format completed.
Writing master boot record...
Drive has a Zeroed Master Boot Record
Set bootable USB partition as 0x80
Using Syslinux MBR
Found volume GUID \\?\Volume{ade69eb7-ebdf-11e4-a5d9-b8ac6f6abb6f}\
Installing Syslinux 4.05...
Successfully wrote 'ldlinux.sys'
Opened drive \\?\Volume{ade69eb7-ebdf-11e4-a5d9-b8ac6f6abb6f} for write access
Successfully wrote Syslinux boot record
Successfully remounted Volume{ade69eb7-ebdf-11e4-a5d9-b8ac6f6abb6f}\ on I:\
Copying ISO files...
Extracting files...
libcdio: Found Extension: Joliet Level 3
Disc image is an ISO9660 image
This image will be extracted using Joliet extensions (if present)
Extracting: I:\.disk\base_installable (0 bytes)
Extracting: I:\.disk\casper-uuid-generic (37 bytes)
Error reading ISO9660 file /.disk/casper-uuid-generic at LSN 648686
Created: I:\syslinux.cfg


Found USB 2.0 device 'USB 2.0 Flash Drive USB Device' (058F:6387)
Found USB 2.0 device 'WD My Passport 07A8 USB Device' (1058:07A8)
Device eliminated because it was detected as an USB Hard Drive (score 23 > 0)
If this device is not an USB Hard Drive, please e-mail the author of this application
NOTE: You can enable the listing of USB Hard Drives in 'Advanced Options' (after clicking the white triangle)
1 device found
Disk type: Removable, Sector Size: 512 bytes
Cylinders: 489, TracksPerCylinder: 255, SectorsPerTrack: 63
Partition type: MBR, NB Partitions: 1
Disk ID: 0x02818B99
Drive has a Syslinux Master Boot Record
Partition 1:
Type: FAT32 LBA (0x0c)
Size: 3.8 GB (4028628992 bytes)
Start Sector: 2048, Boot: Yes, Recognized: Yes

Instead of using Rufus. Try: Universal USB Installer 1.9.5.9 Download - TechSpot

Well thanks to your Universal USB installer and Linux MINT I managed to pull my data out! Then I followed the Startup Repair Infinite Loop Recovery - Windows 7 Help Forums to recover the registry. Everything went well so far but when I entered the command cd \windows\system32\config I got the response The system cannot find the path specified.

Anyway I'm think that I have to format both my SSD and HDD and do a clean windows installation in the worst scenario. Since I have acquired all my data I guess saving or killing the windows has no difference now.

You need to type: cd C:\windows\system32\config

EDIT: Also from Admin command prompt, run these 2 commands to make sure there's no corrupted system files:

1. dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
2. sfc /scannow

I have tried dism and sfc commands and did not work. Since now my laptop takes forever like 20 minutes to boot up just a advanced troubleshoot menu, I guess I have to do a clean window installation then.

Thank you for your advices!! Should this post be marked as solved?