help please :major windows config error prob.

clapton is god · 10 Jun 2006 at 10:23

left my pc d/loading big game demo yesterday, returned home to find my pc had frozen, i had to turn off the power button on the p.s.u and re-boot.

then i had found i had a major problem ,windows xp gave me an error message syaing that Config System file was missing or corrupt.

i re-booted, tried using the recovery console and typing in the command *chkdisk /r* .
it gets to 25% completed and says the file is too corrupt and cannot be fixed.

i now try to re-install win xp, but xp says it cannot be re-installed without re-formatting the c:\ drive.

i looked up microsoft support doc 307545,type in 'md tmp' then press enter and it just says access denied,, please help without me having to re-format.

Ruhbarb · 10 Jun 2006 at 10:32

could do worse than try some of the recommended fixes

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

might get lucky sooo many things that go wrong with windows though its no wonder people just say back up and re-install

windows has turned into a load of spyware imo

clapton is god · 10 Jun 2006 at 10:45

rhubarb: will do- cheers.

clapton is god · 11 Jun 2006 at 07:55

still no joy xp still will not boot up, anyone gotany other tips please.

hp7909 · 11 Jun 2006 at 08:05

Use Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost to back-up to another partition/disk. Then do a thorough format (e.g. Full Format when installing Windows). Will have to reinstall program's with this suggestion. Files, e-mails, etc can be recovered from back-up.

IMO a better /less drastic solution might be there. Just that I find Format can uncover physical HD errors & avoid anything being written there again. CHKDSK/etc would take long because will try & recover data which might not even work :cool:

Trigger · 11 Jun 2006 at 08:25

Ruhbarb said:
windows has turned into a load of spyware imo

What? Fair enough, windows has it's little problems but because of its massive user base, it's going to be targeted by virus attacks etc. Secondly, windows has to cope with the crap that some people do to their systems- I'm not saying that's what has happened here but more often than not, it's the fault of the user that their machine is buggered. What is it with all the anti-microsoft posts recentley?

Anyways, back on topic. Personally I would put the Hard disk in another machine, replace the permissions on the files and copy them over to the other machine. Then put the HDD pack in the machine it was originally in and do a full format

clapton is god · 26 Jun 2006 at 11:09

hi folks, back-up again.

new question:

how do i prevent "Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE " problem in the future ?