Getting a c0000218 (registry File Failure} after OCing

[xBanzai89]

I was overclocking my E8400 on my ASUS P5E. I was in the middle of a orthos test w/ the CPU running at 4GHz and the computer restarted. I figured it was a regular crash, I was wrong. I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit.

After fiddling with it and finally setting it to the default settings, I got this error:

TOP: c0000218 (registry File Failure}
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

I have no idea how to fix this. I looked this up and it could be due to either hardware damage or software. I don't think its the CPU since I'm still able to at least boot and I'm running a mem test with the windows tool to see if its the RAM. The RAM test was fine, no errors.

What do you think the issue could be?

 

[nessus]

The file system got corrupted while the machine was OC'd due to some component or another that had been pushed too far. I'd boot from a BartPE or VistaPE CD and run a chkdsk versus the system drive (obviously while not OC'd).

If you are lucky, that'll be all it takes. If not. Its going to be a reinstall.

 

[xBanzai89]

I'm doing the chkdsk as we speak. How long does this normally take?