Win2k SystemCed file missing/corrupt

[Hawk454]

Well, logged into computer and receive a brand new error that I have never experienced. Win2k SystemCed file missing or corrupt. Insert Windows bootable CD and hit R and C to recover. Supposedly this has to do with the registery becomming bloated beyond the 16 meg limit that all resources must share for initial boot-up. Will begin recovery tonight. Anybody know what the cause of this could be? Obvious answers would seem defrag and software install/uninstall clutter. This windows install is less than four months old but has been in and out of the garage quite a bit for modding.

 

So many drivers to grind through along with windows updates...I really hope the recovery of the system.alt file works as I do not want to do a full re-install.

 

No back-up of registry so I used the default registry and re-installed all drivers (even though all existed on the harddrive already). Windows 2000 still has the service pack 4 installed but the registry does not recognize that fact so it keeps asking to install updates. Yeah, go figure.

 

Will Fdisk this recovery this weekend. Lame. And note to self to back-up registry once everything is installed and once everything is optimized.

[red930]

The SystemCed error can occur if the registry has wasted space which bloats it beyond the 16Mb loading limitation.

 

Download RegCompact and run it about every week to get rid of this wasted space.

 

http://experimentalscene.com/download.php

[Cooler]

As far as I remember, the problem is System Hive (of Registry) getting fragmented. As AceGoober said, the limit is 16MB at load time. System Hive must fit into that space... but when it gets fragmented, some of that reseved space get occupied and therefore the space may run out before load is complete.

 

Another freeware tool to take care of that:

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PageDefrag.html