Anyone here had " Windows/system32/config/system files corrupt or missing" at boot?

[NeilF]

Faulty ram will cause the drive to become corrupted, hence the error your brother is seeing. As i said, run Memtest to confirm this. If Memtest confirms it, then replace the ram. Once the ram is replaced, then try booting into Windows and see if the errror is still there. If it is, then a re-install/re-image is your best option. Either way, get the data off the drive first.

And if the RAM is fine (as I suspect will be the case):-
1) Hard drive going bad?
2) Something else going bad?
3) Just one of those things?