Need help lads!!

Kavs

Well where do i start!!
K ,My machine runs XP on an 80GB(NTFS) Drive using the SATA converter supplied wit new motherboard(ABIT NF7-S) ,everything was going fine until I powered it up about an hour ago.
For no apparent reason its now telling me the following

" Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt
\windows\system32\config\system

You can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup using the original setup CD-Rom
Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair"

Now this is the second time this has happened in two months and i can't for the life of me figure it out! Last time I had to fire up an old 10gb drive install win98,then convert to NTFS and then install XP so i could see my files on the 80GB and then backup all critical files to the 10GB. Then I put a fresh install of XP back onto the 80GB and everything was sweet till today!!!

First question I have is how do u make an XP Boot disk???

Second ceist:How can I start "windows setup from the original setup CD-Rom" when it tells me that this program can only be run from Windows,,(Kinda impossible at the moment!!)If i could get this to run maybe it will be able to repair the file in question!

Im using a friends laptop at the moment
so if anybody has come across this before maybe u might have some advice
Any help would b much appreciated,I'll check back 2nite if I still have any hair left!
Cheers:)

Sleipnir

yes I believe this is one of the files that store the registry, so it's important!
Check the Microsoft knowledgebase articles 307545 (& 315233 if you're dual-booting) 307545 is a long one so I can't post it here.

If you need the bootdisks go to http://www.bootdisk.com where you can download them, however you should be able to directly from the XP Cd. If it doesn't ask you to boot from the CD-ROM when you start the system check the BIOS settings. there is a field in there somewhere which has the boot order. If it won't start from cd it probably looks like this
boot 1=Floppy
boot 2=Hard drive
Boot 3=CDROM
which means it'll start off the HD before the CD. Change it so CD is before HD. Then run the recovery.
Hope this helps.

Kavs

Kananga
Success!!! I managed to make a boot disk from the site u recommended(6 feic'n disks actually!)
I had tried booting from my CD-Rom before but my copy of XP Don't seem to support that???
Anyway got into the repair console and overwrote the corrupted system file with one from the backup folder and hey presto back up running again!
Nice one for the advice Ya saved me hours of hassle!

(Wonder what causes that system file to get corrupted,virus??,I always keep Norton updated so I can't figure it out.)
Cheers mate!:)

M03

Howya Kavs,

Kananga is right. Your registry is made up of 5 "hives" and "system" is one of them.

When windows boots it allocates 16MB to the following:

Loader
Kernel
Hardware Abstraction Layer
Boot Drivers
System Registry Hive

If your system registry hive exceeds 13MB you will see the message above.

So what causes the system hive to exceed 13MB? Well speaking only from my experience it can be a dodgy RAM module. I had a dodgy stick of RAM for 9 months and put down all the blue screens and crashes to a combination of Windows XP and my tendency to install the latest beta drivers for every piece of hardware in my system. It wasn't until I stumbled across the prime95 programme and it's Stress-Test that I found the true cause of the problem. So lash prime95 on and leave it running for about 5 hours. If there are any hardware errors reported then I would suggest that either your memory is faulty, is incompatible with your mobo, or the RAM timing settings in the BIOS might be too aggressive.

Sorry to ramble on for so long,

M03

Kavs

M03,
Don't be sorry man!
Tis interesting stuff,I'm at work now but will follow ur advice when i get home ,I've a sneaking feeling I might have some dodgy RAM(PC2100-512MB).I've been meaning to upgrade the machine for months but might hold out till prices fall a bit more.(eg.Barton3000 + PC3200)

Hope I find the fault cause tis really annoying :mad:

Anyway thanks for the info, nice to know what the root of the trouble is.:o

Sleipnir

ah well if it's a 'burnt' copy it might not support booting from the CD!
If it ain't check your boot order in the bios.

Ronan|Raven

I had to fix this problem for a friend yesterday.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545

Follow the instructions it worked for me.