hey, i have had trouble with this comupter before...it resulted in me buying a new harddrive.....
before i get into it.. Dell Inspirion 9100, 2GB ram, XP Pro SP3 ummm thats all i can think of right now.

so i brought the hard drive probley 6 months ago, and in the past month i have been getting the BSOD like every few days...because i dont really know much about computers this didnt really phase me at all...
so one day it BSOD on me then when i went to restart i couldnt load the OS.. the following messsage cam up (black screen white writing if that helps at all.)

" windows could not start becaue the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
you can attempy to repair this file by starting windows setup using the original setup CD-ROM.
select 'r' at te first screen to start repair"

to the untrained eye this sounds really bad because what i know of computers i know that system32 is like the 'brain' of the computer.. and i would really like to avoid wiping the hard drive and re-installing evrything again..
so if anyone can help me i would be extreamly greatful...i'm not completely useless with computers so it wont be too painful for you
Regards Tim

Hello Aussietim.... Welcome to GeeksToGo,

I'm sorry to hear about your issue. We will try to help you resolve this as soon as possible.
Please understand we are all volunteers and we are not here all the time. Sometimes it may be a extended amount of time to get back to you. If it has been more then 3 days please shoot me a PM and I will try to get back to you quickly then.



Is this all it said?
There seems to be part of the message missing.
Without knowing the complete message it will be harder to fix the problem.
It could be a missing usernint file
Hal file
NTLDR
Csrss

yeah mate, what i typed was word for word on what the error said

Hmm what make and model is your system?
Name brand system or custom build?
We may have to do a repair installation.

as i said in my orignal post it is a Dell inspiron 9100, 2GB ram, Pentium 4 3.4ghz i believe.... not a custom build

Did you get recovery disks with it?

not 100% sure, but i got the orignal XP disc and i am currently in recovery console as we speak

OK since you are in recovery console you have gone to far for the repair installation. Let's try this from the beginning.



olor="#4169E1"]Repair Installation Instructions[/color]

· Insert your Windows XP CD in your CD-ROM and then Restart your computer.

· At the first post screen start tapping the Del key to enter System Bios
· Find the Advance Options or Boot Sequence screen.
· You will need to change the boot sequence so that the CDrom is first and the HD is second.
· Press F10 to Save and Exit and then press Enter to accept.
· The system will now reboot
· When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message is displayed on your screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.
· When you see the following message displayed on the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER
· To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.
· At this point an option to press R to enter the Recovery Console is displayed. DO NOT SELECT THIS OPTION.

· On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.
· Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected and highlighted in the box, and then press the R key to repair Windows XP.
· Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.

You can also go HERE

rshaffer61. i must thank you for your help so far... but i was talked through peforming a disk check whilst in the recovery command ..and that dskchk found 3 errors and corrected them...the problem seems to dissapered see as i am using the problem computer to type this now...
Thanks again
Tim

Ok no problem.
Congratulations. for a successful resolution for your issue. I am happy everything has been worked out for you.