Acpi.sys failure during setup

[DTowleJr]

I received my friend's computer after the message "This program failed to start because umpnpmgr.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem." So I set up the computer in my shop, and I powered it up. At first, I had three ‘failures to find the OS’ messages. Eventually, I was able to get the machine to boot up. It would show the startup screen and then go to the OS choices menu. Each option that I would choose failed. Start Windows Normally sits and spins on the startup screen, then goes to a blue screen that says "c0000218 {Registry File Failure} The Registry cannot load the hive (file): \Systemroot\System32\Config\SYSTEM or its log or alternative. It is corrupt, absent, or not writable." Then it dumps the physical memory, and reboots the machine. Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, and Last Known Good Configuration just goes to the blue screen but does not begin the memory dump and a shutdown is all that I can do to get out of the problem.

One other forum I Googled said to disable ACPI in the BIOS. When I disable the ACPI in BIOS: Start Windows Normally, Safe Mode, and Safe Mode with Network just loops back to a reboot. Last Known Good Configuration does the same.

I have two general questions: 1 - What started this downward spiral? 2 - How do I remedy the situation without completely starting over from scratch?

Also - Can I get to a DOS prompt, and if I can, can I get to a System Restore point and get the machine back to a good registry?

I set up this machine with a new hard drive after the first one failed. I had used the Acer (the manufacturer) OEM setup disks. Then I installed various other programs. I ran several restoration points along the way as well as cleaning and backing up the registry at those same points. Spybot, Ad-Aware, and AVG Antivir are installed.

Edited January 21, 2008 by DTowleJr

[cluberti]

It sounds like either file system corruption, or a hard drive going south (or both). I'd back up data off of that drive and test it with a vendor hard drive test - if the hard disk test passes, then it's just a bum filesystem and a reinstall on that disk should be OK. Either way, consider it a catastrophic failure and boot the machine from a recovery CD to get the data off.