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Thread ID: 92238 2008-08-02 23:17:00 Config ironman (6770) Press F1
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694404 2008-08-02 23:17:00 Hi there,

I am trying to fix my mate's machine. He has a Dell loaded with XP Home.
He told me he was trying to defrag it when it crashed. Checking the hard drive I can see that he only has 3Gb of disc space left on a 100Gb + disk.

When I try and boot up the following error message appears, "\WINDOWS\system32\config\SYSTEM" missing please load windows and go to repair"

Problem is when I try to load windows it tells me it has had to shut windows down cos maybe it has a virus and therefore I never get to the "repair" section!

Any ideas?

Thanks
ironman (6770)
694405 2008-08-02 23:22:00 If you dont want to format it, it'll probably be better to remove it and put it in a working system. Then scan it, with a virus scanner.

And then put it back in the Dell. If that and the repair dont work, you may have to re-format it / use the restore partition.
Speedy Gonzales (78)
694406 2008-08-02 23:42:00 the message: "\WINDOWS\system32\config\SYSTEM" missing means the registry is toast - likely that file was in use by defrag when the PC crashed and thus it was corrupted.

Basically you need to do this support.microsoft.com
Agent_24 (57)
694407 2008-08-03 02:02:00 Basically you need to do this support.microsoft.com

Warning Do not use the procedure that is described in this article if your computer has an OEM-installed operating system
bevy121 (117)
694408 2008-08-03 02:12:00 any reason why not ?

and what do you do instead ?
tweak'e (69)
694409 2008-08-03 02:32:00 Sorry - should have made it clearer - I was just quoting what is says at the start of that ms support link about oem machines.

and Dell certainly fall into that category I think ;)

better to do as Speedy suggests - put it in another machine as a slave and scan it first for virus etc then try to do a repair etc
bevy121 (117)
694410 2008-08-03 02:40:00 any reason why not ?

and what do you do instead ?

Here's an extract from the link:


Warning Do not use the procedure that is described in this article if your computer has an OEM-installed operating system. The system hive on OEM installations creates passwords and user accounts that did not exist previously. If you use the procedure that is described in this article, you may not be able to log back into the recovery console to restore the original registry hives. Fairly self explanatory I think, for more, read the article.
Mickeyduck (14039)
694411 2008-08-03 03:08:00 When I try and boot up the following error message appears, "\WINDOWS\system32\config\SYSTEM" missing please load windows and go to repair"

What you do is boot off the Windows CD, choose Enter to install at the first prompt and then R for Repair at the 2nd.

And make more room.
pctek (84)
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