[RESOLVED] HELP Please

On our desk top we tried to boot it up this afteroon. We got this error message: "Windows could not start because file is missing or corrupt Windows\system32\config\system, start window setup and select r at 1st screen to start repair."

Ok we did this and it just keeps recycling back to the same thing, we cannot repair. We have our original win XP Pro cd, but when we use it it goes thru the same process over and over. Any ideas? What can we do? We cannot get it to boot in safe mode either or we would restore to another point. It worked fine last night at shutdown about 11:10 PM, but at start up this afternoon, we get this error.

WIN XP Pro, DSL, IE. Thanks.

when you crank your pc up with the xp disc in the drive try to do an over the top install or maybe you can use the repair

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frebo

when you crank your pc up with the xp disc in the drive try to do an over the top install or maybe you can use the repair

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It will not repair but if we do the set up will it erase all our other programs?

Put the disk in reboot.
In the bottom you will get a message to hit F2 for automated recovery. I havent tried it so I cant tell you to.
When the disk is done loading.
Select R.
It will ask you what installation you want to log into.
Assuming that you only have one it will only list one.
1 C:windows
Select 1 hit enter.
It will ask for the administrator password.
Assume that ther is not one and do not enter any.
Hit enter.

If there is a password, this forum does not allow me to tell you how to edit the SAM file and remove the password.
Google it if you need to.

C:\windows>
There are several commands.
To view them type HELP.

C:\windows>help
Hit enter.

What I think will fix your problem is check disk.

C:\windows>chkdsk C:

If you get a message saying disk looks ok and was not checked

C:windows>chkdsk C: /p
Dont forget the space between : /
Hit enter.
Next.

Remove the install disk and hold the power button.
Boot up.

If this does not help and there is data that you want off of your hard drive you can connect it to another computer and save the data or buy a new hard drive install your os and use your computer to get data off of the old drive.

If it does help make sure you defragment and run error checking from inside windows.
My computer, rightclick on the C: drive icon, select properties, select the tools tab, select the check now button.
Check both boxes and select start.
You will be asked if you would like it to run on next reboot, select yes.
You should defragment weekly and error check when ever things seem to be taking way too long.
:)

:cool:
This is caused by:
Bad hardrive.
Improper shutdowns.
Never defragmenting.
Never checking disk for errors.
Virus.
Murphys law.
:D
This has happend on my wifes computer a couple of times, she is allways using the power button to shut down when it locks up.
She has verry little patiance.
:rolleyes:
It happened on mine once after a windows update.

Thanks. We will try and see what happens. I will post back.


I just re-read your post. We have already tried the repair thing with the R and it will do nothing but take us right back where we started from or it asks for a reboot disk. We have our original Win XP Pro CD, but no reboot disk.

I had exactly the same problem last summer with a client's computer and this following procedure worked.. It looks a bit scary on the surface, but if you print this out and then do each step ,, with no typing spelling mistakes.. IT WILL WORK.. trust me.. : Ready ???????????? -------
BTW - ( one thing too, I found out when I was doing this procedure, is if the first line of typing the info fails... It is because the Hard drive needs to have a scan disk so when in the dos screen as explained below type in :
C:\windows>chkdsk C:
then start again. )

Follow these steps: 1. Insert the Windows XP startup disk into the floppy disk drive, or insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer. When the PC detects the CD it will ask if you want to start the CD and you just hit any key to get to the start up mode.
(Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted to do so. )
2. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
3. If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you want to access from the Recovery Console.
4. When you are prompted to do so, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.
5. At the Recovery Console command prompt, type the following lines, pressing ENTER after you type each line:
md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak

delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default

copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default

6. Type exit to quit Recovery Console. Your computer will restart.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ttodd

copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak

delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default

copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default

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Aren't all those files related to the registry and thus copying the repair ones is effectively like clearing your registry ?

Thus any programs installed will no longer be recognised ?

That error message is exactly the one I received on an XP windows laptop, and this site http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545 describes the same fix..

I just read the link above. I said something about if we have an OEM installed on our system.......does this mean that the company we bought the cpu instaleld the OS? Our system came with Win XP Pro, but he gave us the disk.

When we have gotten to the R part on the cd, it does not repair, but takes it back around to re-start, so I am not sure how we can do this repair. It gives us 3 options, 1) run set up, and we are afraid we will over ride all other programs etc we have on there, 2) R to recover and 3) to quit.

The system worked fine on Sunday night then at startup Monday afternoon it is corrupt/file missing. Not sure how that happens. Thanks for the help.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pennydog

I just read the link above. I said something about if we have an OEM installed on our system.......does this mean that the company we bought the cpu instaleld the OS? Our system came with Win XP Pro, but he gave us the disk.

When we have gotten to the R part on the cd, it does not repair, but takes it back around to re-start, so I am not sure how we can do this repair. It gives us 3 options, 1) run set up, and we are afraid we will over ride all other programs etc we have on there, 2) R to recover and 3) to quit.

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1) - will give you the option of reinstalling your windows on top of youir exsiting operation. ( most likely won't work )
2) is to recover ( dos mode ) --- (what you want).--
3) of course to quit.

Try putting in an ME or windows 98 bootup floppy 3.5 inch diskette ., what you want the computer to do is to get into a DOS mode , so you can type commands onto a black screen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pennydog

I just read the link above. I said something about if we have an OEM installed on our system.......does this mean that the company we bought the cpu instaleld the OS? Our system came with Win XP Pro, but he gave us the disk.

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That fix does work perfectly for the vast majority of installations, despite what the KB says about OEM installs. In any case there is little risk in trying it, as you still have the option of a repair install if it does give any problems.

Thanks for the help. However it has gotten worse for some reason. The next time we turned the computer on we got a total different screen and it told us the BIOS was missing and it would not recognize the hard drive. So we have bought another hard drive and will try to get the info off the other one if we can. Do you think we got popped with some sort of virus that caused this to happen?

Before you format that harddrive with XP pop the battery out of the motherboard for 5 minutes..,

You should be able to drag over your MY documents and your outlook email /address info as well .

Could not tell from your post if any of my help helped .. ?

Thanks ttodd. No we did not get to use your advice. The next time we turned the cpu on, we got the screen that said the hard drive was not found or no BIOS for it (can't remember which). We will try the battery thing before we put in a new hard drive. I will post back after we try again.

I'm not sure if this is the repair you tried or if you ended up in the recovery console. If you got stuck in the recovery console you may want to try this.
XP Repair install

Boot the computer using the XP CD.
You may need to change the boot order in the system BIOS so the CD boots before the hard drive.
Check your system documentation for steps to access the BIOS and change the boot order.
When you see the "Welcome To Setup" screen, you will see the options below
This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft Windows XP to run on your computer:

To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.

To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.

Press Enter to start the Windows Setup.
Do not choose "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press R", (you Do Not want to load Recovery Console).
I repeat, do not choose "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press R".
Accept the License Agreement and Windows will search for existing Windows installations.
Select the XP installation you want to repair from the list and press R to start the repair.
Setup will copy the necessary files to the hard drive and reboot.
Do not press any key to boot from CD when the message appears.
Setup will continue as if it were doing a clean install, but your applications and settings will remain intact.

Yes we tried all that, did not work. We shut it down for the night and the next morning it said the bios was not found.

We have installed a new hard drive, but want to get our info off the old one. The computer still will not recognize the old hard drive.

What type of virus may we hve gotten that corrupted the config files and then ate the bios?

hello pennydog
I recently worked on a computer for my daughter that also would not recognize the hard drive. The suggestion made earlier was similar to what helped me fix mine.

unhook all power to the computer. remove the side cover
look on the mother board for a "silver" battery that is about the size of a quarter. take it out. now while the machine is unplugged press and HOLD the power button for between 30 seconds to 1 minute. (to drain any residual power in the system) replace the battery and put the computer back together. When I did this mine recognized the dvd drive and the hard drive. Mine was also so badly infected that I then had to do a complete fresh install but hopefully this will let you boot up and then you can follow the previous directions for fixing the initial problem

Slave the old hard drive to the new computer, and then when the PC sees the second HD- start pulling over your files to the new HD,, You will not be able to pull over programs,, just files such as .doc / .jpg / .xml /.mp3 ( etc..)

Here is the latest info on the hard drive problem. We installed a new WD EIDE hard drive(160g) as the master drive, the original hd is a WD SATA(200g), BTW, which is the better hard drive? The new hd(the EIDE) was setup with Win XP and is working properly, we would like to use the SATA hd as a slave but BIOS will still not recognize the SATA (original hard drive). We have SO much information (over 50 photo albums) on the original hd, is there any way to retrieve this info? Would the removal of the motherboard battery still help?

Thank you all for your help.

Take a look in the BIOS and under advanced you should be able to see the motherboard settings for the drives. Make sure that the board is set to use ENHANCED settings and not LEGACY, then go to the BOOT section and make sure the SATA drive is the first drive. Find the setting for Plug and Play operating system elswhere in the BIOS and make sure this is set to NO.
I don't think removal of battery at this point will help any.,

I Don't know which is the better HD..

Unfortunately the way the drive is not even being seen by the BIOS or Windows means that it is almost certainly the drive's electronics that have died. The good news is that the data will be intact. The bad news is that the only way of getting to it is to replace the PCB. To do that means aquiring an identical HDD (identical down to the fiormware revision), and swapping the circuit boards over. Fortunately that is the one operation that you can do yourself outside a clean room. Otherwise you can take it to a data recovery specialist, but they are very expensive.

First off, thank you everyone for the input. Here is what we have done as of last night; we took the new HD out, we ran a copy of Norton Ghost. It found no cooties on the hard drive, but it also found no restore point. All data was intact and we felt good about that at least. We unplugged the HD and moved it up to the next port, took the battery out as suggested above and rebooted. Low and behold it came to life, slow to get thru the bootup screens, but the OS loaded in and everything seemed fine. The system date was back to 2002, but we set that and ran the defrag etc. I am not sure what will happen when we reboot tonight, but all looked good last night. We are going to take it to the shop that built it for us and have them install the new HD as a slave and do some upgrades for us. At least it will not cost a small fortune to get our data transferred. We decided running the Norton Ghost would not hurt since the HD was down anyway.

We are not sure which of the 3 things we did actually fixed it and wishing now we had done one at a time so we would know. Again, thanks for all the help/suggestions.