Hi,

My friend dropped off his computer (its a compaq running XP Professional) and asked my to help him out. He is having trouble booting the computer. Message comes up Corrupt Windows/system32/config/system file. He does not have the original XP disc so I got a bootable copy of XP. He tried doing this on his own and went to repair the MBR and I think we have more problems.

First I wanted to save the data on his C drive so I took out the hard drive and put it in my notebook. I am not able to read whats on the C drive comes up that its there.. but cant access it, so I figured when he replaced the MBR we now have major problems. Is there any way to retrieve the data off the drive and do a re format and a fresh install with XP.

Thanks

David

Hi DSK965

I used to run a Compaq PC and it had a recovery program built into it. Certainly with the one I had, when you accessed the recovery program it gave two option of recovery. The first was one that would overwrite only the operating system files but keep the users data. The second option was a destructive recovery. i.e. it would restore it back to the point it came out of the box.

If you can get access to that, the recovery program will detail what each of the options do.

It might be worth a try.

Hi Stryker,

I have an HP and it has the C drive and the Recovery D drive but this computer doesnt have that. It says to put in the Original XP Cd and run the recovery from there. My friend doesnt have the CD, I have a bootable XP Cd and tried to do a recovery from that it says it will install another MBR but not sure how to fix the corrupt system32/config file. He tried to repair the MBR from that CD and now I cant read the C drive when I installed it on my computer.

Perhaps with hindsight replacing the MBR wasn't such a good idea!

I was browsing through the Microsoft site and found this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

It might be worth giving that a go...especially with you having an XP CD.