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\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 \CONFIG\SYSTEM

Ironically, I’ve had two friends with the same error on their computer within the past week.

They boot up and get an error that says:

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

One time, I couldn’t boot to the Windows XP CD, so I couldn’t get to the Recovery Console.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307545 tells how to repair the registry (which is what’s damaged.)

From what I’ve read, this can be caused by a process writing to the registry when the computer is shut down. Something gets hung up, you think your comptuer is locked up so you shut it off, and bam — corrupted registry.

This Bart fellow has a wonderful boot CD:

It uses the WinPE from your XP CD to create a bootable CD that can access the network, give you a command prompt, file manager, checkdisk, etc. This is an ABSOLUTE must for any sysadmin’s CD case of tools.

In both cases, running checkdisk allowed me to boot up to the hard drive, or use the XP CD to get into the recovery console. In both cases, there were bad sectors on the hard drive.

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Turns out that \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM errors are fairly common, since I’ve fixed this more and more.

Typically, I use the XP CD to boot into the recovery console, then replace the registry hives to the originals, boot to safe mode, extract the hives from System Restore (four or five back), boot back into the Recovery Console and load the hives to the Restored state.

Whew. Anyway, there’s a Microsoft article detailing this procedure, so go search the KB.