Corrupt Registry

HP 743C Desktop
Windows XP Home Edition

From time to time I have had dificulty connecting to internet via DSL,
so typically I restore 2 or 3

Tried to do a Windows XP Home Edition restore from a 3-day old restore
point. During restore..bam... reboot, then error message:

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

Insert XP Recovery disk and press "R"

I've searched for 2 days to locate original XP disk (I was thinking
that no actual disk came with system - purchased new), but no luck.

Here is where I got really boneheaded; thinking I had a bootable floppy
disk from the past I cold-booted to a disk that actually contained:

IBM Bios Version JW3EN5E (vintage 1998)
all indications were that the Bios was updated (downdated) off the
floppy.

Then, after some research, attempted to press F8 on bootup, selected
"restore to last known good boot" and this seemed to work. Windows XP
logo appears, old desktop wallpaper appears, desktop icons, etc. Then,
within a few seconds the New Hardware Wizard takes off, trying to
identify 30 or 40 new hardware devices. The really strange thing is
that some of these "devices" appear to not be devices, but just simple
files, like config.sys (this may not be one of the exact ones, but
similar).

At this point, it runs most all applications wtihout problem, but shows
no network or internet configurations available. I have tried to run
Restore to point, hoping to restore a recent good bootup, but when it
get to the last screen to restore and press continue, no luck. Won't
budge.

Looking for advice.

Thanks ahead of time.

Bill

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: New hard disk
    ... The image file is located on an external disk. ... The Dell technician used the Win XP SP2 restore disk to ... I had to put in the Windows CD and restore. ... Regardless of whether one uses Drive Image or Ghost or True Image, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)
  • Re: XP Shows Incorrect Disk Allocation
    ... Your machine came with a separate restore partition that can restore the ... Windows Explorer, DOS dir command are telling me I'm using ... put on the disk, and I know I haven't used close to 70 GB yet. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter)
  • Re: New hard disk
    ... The image file is located on an external disk. ... The Dell technician used the Win XP SP2 restore disk to ... I had to put in the Windows CD and restore. ... Can BACKUP do this job? ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)
  • Re: New hard disk
    ... "Reboot after restore". ... Shall I have reformatted the disk prior to booting from the Drive Image ... Image was one of the first to support the use of external SCSI drives. ... Should I have ran Drive Image prior to the Windows restore CD? ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)
  • Re: Disk defragmentation
    ... I then observed it on NT4 and Windows 2000 with both ntbackup and Veritas BackUp Exec on NTFS. ... I have to agree with you the fragmentation is absolutely excessive and from one end of the disk to the other. ... The problem is especially bad with large files because you might not have sufficient space to defragment them, you can try restoring the large file only then defrag it, and restore the rest of the files, a PITA for sure... ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics)