Computer help forum: Stop:C0000218 unknown hard error

My son's Dell Dimension E310 desktop is having the same problem. I am using it in safe mode right now, and am able to do a few things. When he starts it, he gets the BSoD and the Stop: Unknown Hard Error 0000218 message. I have bought a registry fixer (RegCure) and run it several times. It keeps fixing the same errors over and over. It says the errors are fixed but they must not be. I ran the Dell Diagnostics tests during dinner tonight but it didn't find any errors, even with the hard drive. I tried to run the chkdsk/r in command mode but got an error message saying: The type of file system is NTFS. Cannot lock current drive. Chkdsk cannot run because volume is in use by another process. I have tried, repeatedly, to follow links to the support.microsoft.com knowledgebase, but I keep getting a message saying that the software can't establish a connection with the server at support.microsoft.com. The computer belongs to a 16 year old boy, so who knows where he's been and what he's downloaded. I'm about to try an antivirus program (probably should have done that first, I guess). Any ideas? Thanx.

Yes, I've tried all the solutions I can, and the ones I mentioned in my post, as well. As I mentioned, for whatever reason, every time I try to follow a link to support.microsoft.com, I get an error in IE, so I can't read the articles there.

I don't have access to an internal drive but I have an external one I can use. Will that work? If so, what do I do? Also, I ran RegCure again a few minutes ago and it came out clean (relatively), this time. Oh yeah, my son seems to have lost his OEM WinXP disk. It's a Dell. Any ideas how to proceed without it (if we even can)?

Thanks for the info. Before I buy another internal drive, can I use the external drive I already have?

If we switch to Linux, will all of our other software work? Is Linux just for "hobbyists" who know a lot about computers, or can mere mortals like me use it?

I thought Microsoft stoppeed selling XP. Should we put Vista on the computer instead?

Thanks.

Thanks for your patience, with all my "simple" questions. OK, so no Vista. That's probably good b/c he only has 1Gb of RAM. Are you saying he only needs the Linux if he needs to recover files? If so, then I can skip that step b/c he saved the few files he had to a thumb drive. Then it sounds like I still need to find a new copy of WinXP somewhere, to reload the OS. Is it still available?

I have a feeling that he may have some kind of virus b/c it is acting so weirdly. Whenever I try to go to a website that might help with the problem, I get some kind of error message, saying the server is unavailable, or something like that. I have no problem getting into the same websites, however, on my other computers. In fact, I bought a copy of BitDefender, to put on the computer. I had to go to another computer and save the EXE file to a memory card and then take it upstairs to his. Then, when I tried to install it, I got an error message, telling me there was a problem installing the software. The dialog box suggested running an online scan. When I attempted that, I got another warning about not being able to do that. Doesn't that sound suspicious?

I did go into Task Manager and disable a bunch of programs that had the word McAfee in them. Could that cause a problem with installing BitDefender? Also, I went into Add/Remove Programs and got rid of some unneded programs. One of them was a program called burrito.exe. My son didn't remember installing anything like that, so I removed it. When I ran AdAware, it flagged burrito.exe as a problem and tried to remove it. I don't know if it was successful. Could burrito.exe be some kind of malware?

Sorry, for all the questions, but I'd really like to be able to get this fixed for him. I'm his hero, don'tcha know?!