Windows XP

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moot21

New Member
I need help My desktop computer wont boot up it's windows XP operating system. It just goes into the the DOS screen with an error message saying that " windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt \windows\system32\config\system

Then it goes onto say that "you can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows setup using the orginial Setup CD rom"
Select "r" at the first screen to start repair.

I have tried to load it from the CD Rom on the BIOS screen but to no avail. I ma even going to purcahse a new XP operating disc because mt disc is very old and I do not know if the productc key has expired. I just can not get the computer to load at all. I am doing this thread from my laptop. Please help me as I am going out of my mind trying to fix this. Thank you :confused:
 
Firstly go into the bios and make sure that in the boot options that the first selected device to boot from is your cd/drive then second device is hard disk drive save and exit then on next startup an option will come up "press any key to load windows" do this follow the prompts and i think if i remember correctly there is an option that comes up pretty quickly to press R to repair an installation of windows once you have done this report back and let us know how you got on.
 
If your going to do a repair install, bypass the first time is asks to press R, thats the recovery console. Let it load files and when it gets to the harddrive setup page, pick your OS then press R
 
Operating System

I still can not get it to work. I have changed the boot options to load from cd/drive then hard drive but I still keep getting the DOS prompt with the previous message as stated in the orginal question. I select "r" and then it just goes round and round in circles and keeps coming back to the orginial screen. Please help. Would buying a new operating disc help this problem as I can purchase an XP operating disc with a product key for fairly small money on ebay. Thanks for your help so far.

If I can not get this to work and I have to buy a new computer is there any way I can get my files of this desktop
 
Thanks to everybody for all the help so far. So far as re-formatting my hard drive I have another question. I have two hard drives on my computer a C drive and a D drive. The C drive is relatatvley small (only 30GB) whereas the D drive is a 320 GB drive. When my desktop was working I used the C drive to run operating systems like windows xp and other programs like itunes etc but all my files of music documents videos etc were stored on my D drive. If I re-format my C drive (where I used to run XP from) Will I

a) lose data from my d drive
b) Have to re=format my D drive also.

Once again thanks for your help. I am certainaly going to keep this forum in my favourites for any future problems. Regards

Moot21
 
You only have to reformat the drive where windows is installed on. However, are you sure you have 2 separate drives and not 2 partitions on one hard drive?
 
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