HELP!!! Biggest Problem I've Ever Had!!!!

[Carnage7p]

ok so yesterday i reformatted one of my computers and that went completely fine and it worked great, however now i have a huge problem with my other computer. i wasn't even doing or trying to fix anything on this computer, but when i started it up it did not make it to windows and it said the following message.

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing
or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup
using the original Setup CD-ROM.

Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair."


ok so the first question i have is will i lose everything on my hard drive?

i am running XP Pro, but the problem is i brought my computer home during my break from school and my XP disc is at school which I can't get. I do have an XP home edition disc and an XP Pro upgrade disc so is there a way i could use these to repair the file? and if so how would i do that. i'm kind of freaking out about this because i barely have anything backed up from the main hard drive because i don't have enough space to back up 150 GB of stuff.

[Matt]

You may get away with using the XP Pro Upgrade disk. Often the upgrade discs are the same as the normal discs but they check you have a previous Microsoft OS and are really upgrading. As far as the repair goes this disc should work.

The error does look fairly serious.

Is your hard drive partitioned or is windows mixed up with your 150Gb of data?

[Scott_Talbot]

yeah, your pretty screwed...

but in the mean-time, if you need to get files off that hard drive you can always throw in a second hard drive (a old 10 gig or somthing), set it as the master drive and boot off of that one. then you can accesses the 150GB drive.

[Mushiman]

Take out the drive, put it as slave in your other computer, if you can't access the drive to back up your files, use a program called 'Get Data Back' for FAT32 or NTFS, depending what you are using, but if it's XP it more than likley be NTFS.

[Carnage7p]

Take out the drive, put it as slave in your other computer, if you can't access the drive to back up your files, use a program called 'Get Data Back' for FAT32 or NTFS, depending what you are using, but if it's XP it more than likley be NTFS.

i can't do that because my other computer is a laptop. i'll try the upgrade disc.

[Raptor]

The repair should work, however.... the file that is corrupt appears to be one of the registry hives, recovering from that could reset some of the registry settings for applications. the data will remain untouched, but you could need to reinstall some of your apps.
You could try booting to safe mode and running this against the registry files.
http://www.theundergroundtv.com/chkreg.zip
I had a corrupt hive file on a Windows2000 Domain controller, and MS tech support fixed it with this then sent me a copy, supposedly works for 2K and XP....

[Mushiman]

i can't do that because my other computer is a laptop. i'll try the upgrade disc.

Shitter!

[Carnage7p]

ok i need some help. i'm at Windows XP Professional Setup. So i guess i go to repair a windows xp installation. after that it takes me to the recovery console. now from here i am lost. i don't know what to type in. i'm left with this

C:\>


what do i type in there. i am really lost. and i don't want to mess up and lose all my files.

[Raptor]

Try the checkreg utility in a safe mode boot before you use the recovery console, or type help at the c prompt to get a list of recovery console commands...

[Carnage7p]

yeah i typed help already and got the commands but i don't know what 90% of those do.

if i were to just re-install xp then, would that clear my hard drive?

[Naphie]

if your lap top is working then you can download a progarm called bartpe and use the xp pro upgrade disk to make a simple version of xp that boots from a cd. then you can use a network to move files from your dead computer to your working laptop.

[U.S.Amateurfilmaker]

if your lap top is working then you can download a progarm called bartpe and use the xp pro upgrade disk to make a simple version of xp that boots from a cd. then you can use a network to move files from your dead computer to your working laptop.

if your lap top is working then you can download a progarm called bartpe and use the xp pro upgrade disk to make a simple version of xp that boots from a cd. then you can use a network to move files from your dead computer to your working laptop.

:spam:

[Naphie]

who is noflow?

[U.S.Amateurfilmaker]

a forum troll

[El Brenty]

Isn't he that Porno guy?

[U.S.Amateurfilmaker]

yes, and obviously a troll for copying someone's post to raise his post count.

[El Brenty]

He did that to?

Consider it deleted!