My XP installation suddenly won't start

Hi all,
I've searched the forums this morning looking for anyone else having this exact problem and am having no luck so far, so I'll go ahead and post a new topic. I am running Windows XP home edition on an HP Pavilion 172N. XP was pre-installed on the PC from the factory. My system did not come with a recovery CD, but instead has the recovery data stored on a separate partition of the hard drive, drive letter D:.

On Saturday, my PC started running pretty sluggish, which was weird because it has been running great for quite awhile and out of nowhere is instantly starting acting up. On Sunday morning, I restarted it to see if that would help.

Windows shut down, then the PC rebooted but never opened up any of the Windows boot screens or anything. It went from the HP Invent screen to a black screen for about 1 minute, then it says something along the lines of

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt - C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM" on the black screen.

It will site on this screen all day if I let it. When I hit any key, the PC reboots and ends up back at the same screen again.

I only have access to the BIOS via the F1 key, and Windows Recovery and the Windows Boot options screen via their respective F* keys. I have tried starting Windows using all options (Safe Mode both with and without Networking, Debugging mode, VGA node, etc.) and nothing works.

I'm not quite ready to just let the system recovery do it's thing yet, because I haven't backed up my personal data in awhile (stupid...I know) and I don't want to lose everything.

Being that my system doesn't come with a recovery CD (I know because I searched for it for about 2 hours all over the house...until my wife simply sat down and read the book that came with the computer and it said right there on page 3 that no CD was provided with our PC because they put everything on the hard drive )

I would think there has to be a way to run a system "repair" from the D: partition instead of having to do a full system recovery and wipe everything out.

HELP!!!!!!!

One more question. I thought I read somewhere on here that if you do a system recovery, it writes all of your personal files to a backup folder somewhere and you can access them later. Is this true? Just curious in case I do end up going this route.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

You have a corrupt registry.

It gets better. Because its OEM, the MS instructions ahve to be varied a little.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307545

For the last part of step 5:

Change it to:

Note the difference.



Also note that if you are unable to perform this article in its entirety, you will be reinstalling a bunch of stuff.

 

Oops I meant to add, you need the XP setup floppies.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...db-5039-4955-bcb7-4fed408ea73f&displaylang=en

There is a link for XP Home at the bottom as well.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I have a problem though with the following:

1. Insert the Windows XP startup disk into the floppy disk drive, or insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer.
Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted to do so.

2. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.

My PC did not come with a startup disk at all. I found this hard to believe and searched high and low for one. As I stated in my previous post, my wife found the portion of the book that came with the PC that specifically states that my PC did not come with a recovery disk.

When I boot the computer to the Recovery console, I don't have "options". It asks me if I want to continue with the recovery, or exit and try System Restore. If you try System Restore, the PC simply reboots and ends up back at the black screen with the text telling me the file is missing or corrupt.

So I have no way of doing any of the things shown in Part One of the Windows instructions.

 

LOL I was typing away my response to you and after I submitted it I found your second response. LOL

Thanks again. I'll get busy on this tonight after I get home.

 

Good luck. If the recovery console asks for an admin password, just hit enter, unless you set one yourself.

 

Okay, so I hit a snag right out of the gate. With the computer off, I put disk 1 of 6 (Windows XP SP2 boot disk that I created from the link you gave me) and turned on the PC.

First the hard drive light flashed like usual, then the floppy light came on and it made a typical "reading" sound, then the computer just moved on to the black screen and eventually I ended up at the file missing or corrupt screen again.

For grins yesterday, I also made a set of boot disks using the XP Pro downloadable file from Microsoft as well. After the first set of disks failed to do anything, I put the Pro disks in, and it ran through copying the files and eventually got me to the Recovery console. It asked me which system I wanted to access, but my only options were:

1. D:\MiniNT
2. D:\I386

I figured I am supposed to be access the installation of Windows on my C: drive, not the D: partition stuff.

At the prompt, I changed over to the C: drive, but it wouldn't let me do anything. I tried to change into the Windows directory to create the tmp directory and it would let me. I couldn't even run the DIR command on C:

I am attaching a screen shot showing the contents of the XP SP2 boot disk #1 so maybe you can see if something is weird. Just so you know, my assumption was that maybe the disk I used was bad, so today I downloaded the .exe file again from Microsoft, and used a different set of disks to create the boot set again. When I compare the two disk #1s, the are identical in content and file sizes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/FrontierChris/XPSP2bootdisk1.jpg

 

Try logging in to the D:\i386.

Then, run chkdsk /r on the C: drive.

You need to run it from the i386 directory, because its not included on the floppies. Sounds like you have a filesystem problem if it wouldn't even let you do the dir command.

 

Okay, I used the XP Pro disks to get back into the Recovery Console, and then I ran chkdsk c: /r from the D:\I386 system. It said it found and fixed one or more errors. I exited the Recovery console and the PC rebooted right into XP! It looks like everything is working right now!

Thanks a lot!!

I love this site! This is twice ya'll have saved my sorry ass!

 

Glad to help!