Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 822705 contains the following summary:
This article describes how to troubleshoot registry corruption issues.
If your computer does not restart, the registry hives may be corrupted. The error messages may vary.
They can include any of the following:
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM.ced
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE
System hive error
Stop 0xc0000218 (0xe11a30e8, 0x00000000, 0x000000000, 0x00000000) UNKNOWN_HARD_ERROR
Stop: 0xc0000218 \{Registry File Failure\} The registry cannot load the hive (file): \SystemRoot\System32\Config\CorruptHive or its log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.
