repair corrupt \windows\system32\config\system file?

When turning on pc today during post the machine halted with the message Smart : Command failed press F1 to continue. So I pressed F1 and the machine continued to boot then halted unable to find an operating system.
So I rebooted and got this time no error messages from SMART in fact reported Ok, but still no operating system.

I booted from the cd and went into repair console, I selected fixboot and it reported that files were incorrect and would replace them. Then rebooted and again SMART was ok and this time it found a boot record from the disk but the following message has appeared;

" Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

\windows\system32\config\system "

It goes on to advise to repair this file from the repair console and thats my dilemma, how do I attempt this?

The disk uses the ntfs system and I am useing XP professional.

All help gratefully received.

 

Ut Oh,

Corrupt or missing Registry Hive!
Looks like you may have a bad day....

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29232&highlight=corrupt+registry

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25581&highlight=corrupt+registry

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23045&highlight=corrupt+registry

http://www.aade.com/XPhint/XPrecovery.htm

Read all and sublinks thoroughly. Make sure you understand what you need to do and why your doing it and what you risk losing as a possible consequence.

 

Thanks for the info Goddez1

I have just attempted a repair and it did succeed however it looks as if the drive is history as it suddenly crashed with the same smart error on the reboot and of course the same no operating system messages etc. Shows that the SMART built into the drives has a limited use as it reports the drive as ok but scandisk now reports the drive has unrecoverable faults. Happily I did a backup a week ago so a new drive is in order, shame about my latest emails but thats how it goes.

Thanks for trying to help and I have at least learnt something new.

 

So sorry,

Harddrives don't last forever. If the emails are that valuble to you you may could always repeat the process and grab or backup them up to a removable storage device such as a floppy or cd burner.

May even be worth trying to slave this harddrive to another and see if it is readable for personal file backups or dragNdrop copies.

You also could try, again using what ever method made this harddrive workable, and then do a chkdsk /R:

CHKDSK
chkdsk drive /p /r

This command (where drive specifies the drive to check) checks the drive, and if needed, repairs or recovers the drive. It also marks bad sectors and recovers readable information.

The /p switch instructs CHKDSK to do an exhaustive check of the drive even if the drive is not marked with problems, and then corrects any errors that are found. The /r switch locates bad sectors and recovers readable information. Note that if you specify the /r switch, the /p switch is implied. The chkdsk command may be specified without arguments, in which case the current drive is implied with no switches. Optionally, the listed switches are accepted. The chkdsk command requires the Autochk.exe file. Chkdsk automatically locates this file in the bootup folder. Typically, this folder is the Cmdcons folder if the Command Console was pre-installed. If the folder cannot be found in the bootup folder, Chkdsk tries to locate the Windows CD-ROM installation media. If the installation media cannot be found, Chkdsk prompts you to provide the location of the Autochk.exe file.

This thorough check for bad sectors may yet save the harddrive. (Personal experience with a harddrive that was saving system files to bad sector). On a reboot they'd be gone or at least unreadable. After having marked the sector as bad this saved my bacon, at least untill the time when I replaced the harddrive. I needed a larger harddrive anyway. This second harddrive has been demoted to "noncritical" storage as I would always have to use an additional bootup step to bypass the S.m.a.r.t warning that "harddrive failure was imminent ". I believe this was due to the number of sectors marked as bad. For some reason, once triggered I was never able to disable s.m.a.r.t. no matter what method I used.

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On a good note Harddrives are rather inexpensive and a clean slate install is just in time for "The Spring Cleaning" season.