Corrupted system file

C

chibicitiberiu

New Member
Yesterday evening, I installed few new fonts on my computer from a site with fonts. When I double clicked one to preview, the computer began to lag and work very slow, then BSOD saying that the video driver entered an infinite loop or something like that.

Today in the morning when I started the computer, it booted fine, but it froze after launching the 'explorer.exe' task. After a restart, it froze earlier, just after the boot screen. The third time, it wouldn't boot any more. The error that appears is this:
' Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

I tried a 'fixboot' in Recovery Console, but didn't help at all. Then, the next time I launched the Recovery Console, BSOD. After a restart, nothing happened, absolutely nothing, not even the POST screen, the monitor switched to standby mode, and restarting or power off and starting again, same problem. I pulled out one of the 2 sticks of RAM, and it worked, now I put it back and still works. But the operating system (windows xp) doesn't.

Now I wrote this from Ubuntu Live CD. I really need help, I don't have any idea how to fix this problem without reinstalling the OS. On the windows disk there is a I386 folder which contains several files which contain 'SYSTEM', but the extension is '.??_', for example ',dl_'.

How do I fix this?
 
I had a similar issue with a missing Config/System file. I've yet to hear of any other solution other than the use of the original startup disk.
 
I have used this procedure in the past. What is said there is quite true. There is a lot of typing involved but at the end of it all you have replaced the registry files with the backup registry files that were made when Windows was first installed. Be aware that none of the software you had installed is represented here and it will have to be reinstalled.

This procedure is not used that often now. It seems that most of the time when you get this error, the file really isn't missing or corrupt. You merely have a malfunctioning hard drive and the system cannot read this file from your drive. I have had limited success in doing a fixboot and fixmbr from the recovery console. This usually allows the drive to boot. If it works for you then run out and buy yourself a new hard drive because your drive is failing. Make yourself an image of the current drive, switch out the drives and reinstall the image. Works great and much faster than a complete reinstall of the OS. Let us know how you make out.
 
Let me explain a bit how it works, and it worked for me, no need to install anything. After I replaced the bad files with the backup files, windows started, that's all I needed, because I couldn't access 'System Volume Information' from the Recovery Console. After that, I had to give my user account full access to this folder, pretty simple with this console command
cacls "driveletter:\System Volume Information" /E /G username:F
( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309531/ )

Inside that folder there were some weird folder names. I had to access the one which was not created at the present date, so mine was somewhere in may. Inside there were many folders with the name RPx, where x is a number. I used the latest one, biggest number. Inside I opened the 'Snapshot' folder, and copied the following 5 files:

* _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT
* _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY
* _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
* _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM
* _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM

I copied them to a temporary folder, anywhere on the hard disk. Then renamed them to
* Rename _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT to DEFAULT
* Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY to SECURITY
* Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE to SOFTWARE
* Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM to SYSTEM
* Rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM to SAM

Since these were system files, could not be deleted from inside windows, so I had to enter the Recovery Console again. Then I copied these files from the temp folder to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG, replacing the old files. Than, everything worked like before, all software, drivers, were back installed, and all the settings restored.

That's all I did, but microsoft added an additional step, to restore to a previous restore point. I didn't know why that would help, since I copied the latest versions of these files, the restore point I used to get these files was the day before it stopped working.



Still this doesn't explain why the BSOD in the Recovery Console, and why it didn't work any more, not even showing the POST screen. Windows doesn't have the power to screw the BIOS.
 
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