Laptop Problem.

[slipd]

Hey guys,

I’ve got my mates laptop round atm. He gets a windows/system32/config/system – Missing or Corrupt Message when Windows (XP Home) starts up.

We’ve tried Last Known Good Config and Safe Mode and both return the same message

Also tried re-installing Windows, but we get the Terms & Conditions, press F8 and the machine restarts.

At first I thought it might be the Hard Drive, but now I’m suspecting the memory is at fault?

What’s the best bootable memory testing tool these days, the last time I had problems I used memtest86. Has anything else superseded it since?

Also, has anyone got anything else I could try out in the mean time – am I thinking along the right lines

Cheers,

SW.

Edit: He’s also just said that he sometimes gets a BSOD with a ‘bad_pool_caller’ message, but he can’t remember at what point

 

[skanky]

put install cd in, boot from cd, choose recovery mode/command prompt, run chkdsk c: /r to see if that can fix up the problem.

 

[slipd]

put install cd in, boot from cd, choose recovery mode/command prompt, run chkdsk c: /r to see if that can fix up the problem.

Thanks mate

When I select the Windows installation the laptop just re-starts itself...

I've tried using one stick of memory at a time too - but the message remains and we can't re-install either

I'm rapidly running out of ideas.

Help

SW.

 

[clocka]

could try updating bios. you can download memtest as an .iso and burn it to a cdr which is bootable.

 

[slipd]

could try updating bios.

I think it's up to date anyway - seems weird that it suddenly just started happening

you can download memtest as an .iso and burn it to a cdr which is bootable.

Even though I've tried the current memory in various combinations, I think I'll still give memtest a go in case both sticks are faulty.

SW.