Critical Boot Error! (System Files Missing / Corrupted)

A long time ago, (about a year) I bought a computer from Costco's. I brought it home, took it out of the box and shoved the old 98 aside for space. It did not boot. So I exchanged it for a new one and it's been happily working ever since.

Until today.

I shut down the computer and came back to it to work on some word documents. I turned it on, got the HP screen, then to my surprise, no Windows XP loading screen. Instead, this is what came up:

Windows Could Not Start Because The Following File is missing or corrupt:

C:\Windows\System32\CONFIG\System

You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup CD using the original Setup CD-ROM. Select 'r' at the first screen to start screen.

My HP Pavilion is of course, OEM installed an there are no accomanying setup disks to reinstall/install Windows XP.

I can still get into the HP BIOS and system recovery. I fear "product recovery" as I had an Aptiva which came ith the red disks of doom that would wipe your computer clean. SO I adjusted the BIOS to boot up my MS-DOS boot-up disk that I made. It came up to a "error reading drive A ". So now I only have HP product recovery.

I hope I will not have to use it but if I do:

What does it do?
What does it delete?

I'm just hoping for it to boot again without the dreaded recovery.

 

I understand from what HP told me about my Pavilion 540n when it was still new that invoking Product Recovery will restore the drive to the condition it was when it left the factory. You will lose all of your personal files, added software and settings. Fortunately mine has never crashed....yet. The original files are contained on a hidden partition of the boot drive. I was able to talk them into shipping me a set of CDs that are equal to that hidden partition so I could reload if the drive totally failed. I was required to pay $10 shipping and handling. I'm still disappointed with that treatment since it's not equal to having a MS XP install disk.

But in order to prepare for a crash and not have to go back to square one, I use a disk imaging software to copy the entire boot partition on a weekly basis. That way if I have to reload, I keep all updates, SPs, new software, settings and personal files...everything. It's the only way to go as far as backups are concerned. I place the backup copy on my secondary drive for safety and usability.

You can image your current drive even though it's unbootable. I suggest Symantek Ghost since it works very well for that. Then when you reload the system using Product Recovery, you'll at least have a copy of your old files that can be used to bring them on to the new system. Any program files will need to be reinstalled but you'll have all your settings intact.

There are other ways to save your data such as installing a new boot drive to perform the Product Recovery to and then slaving your present drive to it so you can copy stuff over.

Most of the recovery methods will require a skill level of at least intermediate.

Good luck.

 

I forgot to mention that you should try booting the last known good configuration just in case you get lucky.

To do that, cold boot the computer and as soon as the first Splash Screen fades, press the F8 key. That should get you to a menu that will have the "Last Known Good Configuration" as one of the choices.

 

I've tried last good configuration, as well as every other object on the menu. It will simply go to the missing file/ corrupted file error and not boot windows .

 

Do you have or can you get an XP CD? Not a restore disk, but an OS CD.

 

And, there is another procedure which doesn't require Recovery Console being installed, but does require access to a full OS CD.

 

I actually ran the HP "recovery" .....................for nothing. And I found the solution on microsoft's knowledge base a few minutes later. It needed the recovery console but the %^@($#& "recovery" deleted it! If I happened to get a CD from a friend, would I run into CD key problems if I tried to extract a file?

 

932932.....Hike (just got done watching football)

Windows could not start because the following files is missing or corrupt
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM or \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE
1. Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
2. At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
3. Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair. Typically this will be #1
4. Enter in the administrator password when requested
5. cd \windows\system32\config
6. Depending on which section was corrupted:
ren software software.bad (or)
ren system system.bad
7. Depending on which section was corrupted
copy \windows\repair\system (or)
copy \windows\repair\software
8. Take out the CD ROM and type exit

 

Eagles won and their Super Bowl opponent is the New England Patriots.

Back on topic now, your forgetting that I don't have a XP CD nor do any of my friends. ( "Recovery" disks galore ) So there must be another method, or i'm doomed for total "recovery ".

UPDATE:

I'll try my "recovery" CD from my work computer and i'll see if that has any Windows files.

 

You referenced it and you'll need it - forget about any restore CD's as has been stated previously. If thats a problem, you'll need some new friends. Plenty of nice people hanging out in Foxboro ........

 

I found what the problem is .

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q307545

Does it work?
Is it safe for my OEM installed computer or is that a legal disclamer?

 

That procedure will work as far as it goes. Unfortunately, it will not completely deliver a fully repaired system. They tell you that right up front. They also warn against using it on an OEM system. I recommend you heed that warning.

Your same problem has been presented several times before on this forum and that procedure has rarely worked.

For the amount of work involved, I would advise some other method of data recovery like another hard drive with new install and slave the old one. Else, a parallel install on the old drive. Else, image the old drive using a boot floppy imaging software and then doing a clean install - recovering files from the image as needed later.

I had some problem with your link but I'm sure it was supposed to be:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q307545

Good luck.

 

Fixed it! kinda..........

After ripping out the registry and replacing it with a fresh one, it would not boot. It simply got to the splash screen and stopped. So I decided to run a recovery again as it failed previously.

YES!!!!!
It booted and everything was fine. Until I checked my files. My 35 Gigs of files shrank to 15 Gigs . HP bloatware flooded the desktop (atleast I can delete that). Worst of all, I lost 1,500 pictures taken on my Canon S410, and 250 office documents went down the drain.

So I only cried for about 30 minutes and started to re-install drivers, patches, cable modem.........etc. Then I got to SP2 as my computer came with only SP1. After extracting files from I386, it simply froze. It said it was suppose to be intailizing and installing SP2. The first time I got SP2, I had trouble downloading it but installed it in a jiffy. HELP!!!!!

If any of you read the KB article, step two outline how to prepare system restore. I got into the system volume folder, and found no other snapshot folders . I suspect the HP recovery deleted them. I want to recover these files so I can recover stuff. I think I can as my computer contains traces of the old files and user accounts (David, Juntan and Guest) My tmp folder was C:\WINDOWS\regtmp. I can see the five .bak files (system, software, sam, security, and default). Does anyone now how to get the system restore snapshots back?

Also, is it possible to delete windows messenger? I keep getting messages talking about updates and spyware and why I should go to
"www.give-us-access-to-your-files-so-we-can-ermmm-check-them-for spyware.com" I deleted the messenger folder as I use AIM and the ads were getting annoying.