A Windows XP based hard drive partition can get corrupted due to various reasons, like registry hive corruption, file system damage, metadata structure corruption, and virus infection. Once the partition is corrupted, it becomes unbootable and all its data becomes inaccessible. In such cases, if the user needs to access the partition data, then s/he needs to find the exact cause for partition damage and perform required action. However, if the user is unable to find the exact cause of corruption, then an easy option is to format the hard drive partition and restore the data from an updated backup. However, in case no backup is available, then the user can recover the formatted partition data using an advanced third-party Partition Recovery Software.

Consider a practical scenario, wherein you try to boot your Windows XP partition and encounter the below error message:

“1016 An I/O operation initiated by the registry failed unrecoverable. The registry could not read in, or write out, or flush, one of the files that contain the system’s image of the registry. ERROR_REGISTRY_IO_FAILED”

After the above error message appears, data saved in the Windows XP based partition becomes unbootable, leading to inaccessibility of all its saved files and folders. In addition, the same error message appears every time you try to boot the partition.

Cause:

As described in the error message, registry is corrupted or damaged. Registry corruption occurs due to improper system shutdown, virus attack, and more similar reasons.

Resolution:

To resolve registry corruption error message and to access hard drive partition data, a user needs to follow the below mentioned steps:

Review all the hardware, drivers, and BIOS entries.
In case all the above entries are correct, then you need to restore the system to a previous restore point (when registry was working fine).
In case no such restore point exists, you will need to format the partition and restore data from an updated backup. However, if no backup is available, then you will need to use an effective Recover Partition tool to recover data. Such Partition Recovery tools are easy to handle and operate.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a powerful, yet secure Partition Recovery Software that recovers all lost, deleted, and formatted partitions. Supported by FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 file systems, the partition recovery utility can be installed on Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000 operating systems.