Can't start my PC - please help!

[lizardo]

Hi all,

I've been having a bit of a nightmare on my PC at home. It's got XP Pro installed on it and has been working fine up until recently. A couple of days ago I tried to boot it up and it's coming up with an error message which (if my memory serves) says "windows/system32/config/system file is missing or corrupt. Try using XP setup disk and pressing 'r' for the repair function". Well I've managed to get into the XP setup menu, and install the SATA drivers so that it actually acknowledges that I have a hard drive, but when I go into the repair screen, it comes up with a DOS type prompt and I don't know what to do next. I've looked through the commands list by typing HELP, but none of them seem to say they'll repair a specific file.

I have also, using other boot up disks, run chkdsk and scandisk on the drive and neither is finding any problems.

Does anybody have any clever ideas for how I can get out of this mess as I'm starting to get a little upset as this has been going on for a few days now? Thanks in advance for anything you can come up with.

Lizardo.

[cronus71]

Hi all,

I've been having a bit of a nightmare on my PC at home. It's got XP Pro installed on it and has been working fine up until recently. A couple of days ago I tried to boot it up and it's coming up with an error message which (if my memory serves) says "windows/system32/config/system file is missing or corrupt. Try using XP setup disk and pressing 'r' for the repair function". Well I've managed to get into the XP setup menu, and install the SATA drivers so that it actually acknowledges that I have a hard drive, but when I go into the repair screen, it comes up with a DOS type prompt and I don't know what to do next. I've looked through the commands list by typing HELP, but none of them seem to say they'll repair a specific file.

I have also, using other boot up disks, run chkdsk and scandisk on the drive and neither is finding any problems.

Does anybody have any clever ideas for how I can get out of this mess as I'm starting to get a little upset as this has been going on for a few days now? Thanks in advance for anything you can come up with.

Lizardo.

I've managed to fix similar symptoms by using the FIXBOOT and CHKDSK commands off the XP CD itself.

Take a look here, it might be of some help to you.

All the best

[lizardo]

Cheers cronus71,

looks like a very handy page. Think I'll take a print out of that home with me tonight and see if any of it helps.

Lizardo.

[b0b0]

i'm affraid you may have to reinstall XP
XP seems better that the previous OS from M$, but when it crashes, it is BAAAAAAD !!!

[lizardo]

Thanks again for the help cronus71,

have at least managed to get XP up and running again, although all my drivers seem completely screwed up. Think I may have to stick all my files on a couple of discs and then do a re-format and re-install to clean up all the problems. As b0b0 says, when XP goes wrong it seems to go REALLy wrong!

Cheers,

Lizardo.