Hoping someone can help me with this one?when my computer starts to boot it stops and bring this message on the screen.now i tried putting the windows disc in to do a windows repair but even when it boots of that disc it brings this messgae up.anyone else had this problem?and if so how did you sort it?cheers

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt.
\windows\system32\config\system

 

I've seen packard bell's do this and take a re install to fix. I cant remember what exactly causes it and I think that machine got sent pack to PB to fix.

If there's nothing on the machine that your fussy about loosing and you can get to the boot options then do the reinstall. That's probably the least amount of hassle to fix it.

good luck mate

 

Classic problem nothing to do with the PC manufacture, rather a registry hive is corrupt in this case it's the SYSTEM hive (You have Windows XP ), there is a backup of this file under %Systemroot%\repair which you can replace the corrupted file with (Thats the one thats in (config\system) by RECOVERY CONSOLE, HOWEVER this backup file is created when the OS was installed and so some software etc will need to be reinstalled.

You are unlucky in the fact your system hive is corrupted, the method above is for retail installations NOT OEM, if you replace the SYSTEM hive on an OEM installation, I.E the PC you brought from the shop, you may not be able to log back into the recovery console again, this is due to the system hive creating passwords and accounts that did not previously exist. (I can bypass windows security though )

Here is Microsofts KB for the issue http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545, let me know if you have any questions, need help etc. For an end user in this situation I recommend you are best of backing up your data and doing a clean install.

Microsoft actual recommendation is ASR Automated System recovery, however most user's don't do this.

Martin

 

just format the drive and start again you'll loose eveything but easy'st way imo