[athro]

I get the "windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt windows\system32\config\system" message. Most posts as I can see refer to using the CD setup so am a bit stuck. I run XP Home edition on a Dell - problem is I have no Setup CD as it is OEM. Any help appreciated.

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Dell normally supply CDs with the system. If you don't have one any XP Home OEM CD will do.

[Neil Jones]

Dell normally supply CDs with the system. If you don't have one any XP Home OEM CD will do.

[athro]

The whole point is, I don't have CD. Is there any other way around without using CD?

[diabillic]

Do you have the recovery console installed as a boot option?

[athro]

Managed to get hold of appropriate CD. Having run through the repair/up process as described in article "how to repair windows XP" - after pressing ENTER to set up windows XP i get blue page which says "setup did not find any hard drives installed on your computer. ....... set up cannot continue press F3 to quit." Went to boot device menu and hard drive diagnostics says Drive 0 ST3160023AS - Pass, the other drives say no device. Am I completely stuck? Has my hard drive irreprably been corrupted? What to do next?
In the boot menu there is utility partition I can run some diagnostics on that.