bootup warning - serious?

Hi: OS: wXPSP2, 500 MB RAM, 1.8 GHz Pentium, ASUS mobo. The hard drive with OS is nearly full (of photos).
Problem: in the last 3 days, the PC has booted to black screen with the title:
"configuration recovery menu" (as I wrote it down in a hurry). Option is to have windows load the last good configuration, at which the OS/computer boots as if nothing had happened.
-But what has happened? I have asked my wife (her PC) to back up on her backup drive, whatever needs to, just in case. Is this a sign of a corrupting OS, a failing or full hard drive? SMART is monitored by Norton System Doctor which is in the tray & always active, and there has never been a warning. The drive is a Maxtor 40G about 4 yrs. old, new when bought.

-Will Ghost (we have v2002) image a bootable image that when installed to a new drive will really boot from that imaged OS? This assumes it's the drive that is full, but the OS is ok.

-The backup drive was for data only. Could I add wXPSP2 & boot from it, image all files (from the problem drive) to it, wipe the problem drive, & restore the imaged files back? What about Kodak EasyShare albums (which apparently don't move when other related to it, including the pix, do)?

What are the next steps you think I should take? Thanks.

 

Hello Paul,

This would be a dual boot - its the way I operate and create images for the non running OS from the live OS and works but I'm not sure you want to add that complication and my not solve anything. But it should work - in your case just the minimal OS with an imaging program on it.

Don't run Kodak so can't speak to that.

I've done some searching on this, this seems to be rare and not a lot of ansers: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=configuration+recovery+menu&btnG=Google+Search

From the few indications, this seems to be hardware related.

Regards - Charles