XP won't boot - missing files - questions about XP disk - thanks

From: J-miami (josh_at_thesouthbeachhostel.com)
Date: 02/27/05 

Date: 27 Feb 2005 11:08:15 -0800

Hi,

My Toshiba laptop won't boot into Windows anymore. When I try to boot
Windows I get a black screen with the message:

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

So I went online and found lots of information about how to fix it such
as http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/en-us. I followed all the
directions but it didn't work. The main point of what they said was to
copy the following:
copy C:\windows\repair\system C:\windows\system32\config\system.

That didn't work because it said the file (directory?) doesn't exist in
my repair directory (I don't know why). "System" doesn't exist in
either directory anymore.

My original Toshiba "recovery disks" don't give me any options to just
reinstall Windows -- I would have to reformat the entire drive which I
don't want to do because I know my files are ok (I have viewed them on
the drive with a Knoppix Linux that boots from the CD drive).

I can borrow a friends XP Pro SP1 disk -- is there anything I can do
with that to just repair my one file? Or to reinstall Windows XP over
my old installation without destroying my data just so that I can back
it up and then reinstall with my Toshiba XP disk? (My current OS is XP
Home SP2).

Thanks in advance for any help anyone might be able to provide.

Josh

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