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My PC running Windows XP has been telling me it's been recovering from srious errors on startup for a few weeks now. I couldn't repair anything because it didn't tell me what was wrong.

Now my PC won't start. I get a black screen with white text telling me i have a missing or corrupt SYSTEM 32/SYSTEM CONFIG/SYSTEM file. Apparently that's the registry. I have inserted the Windows XP CD in the CD drive and restarted but there's no clue as to how to get to its contents.

I am supposed to press 'r' at the first screen to start repair. But there is no first screen. All I get is the same message over and over when I restart manually or press esc.

Is there something I can do to get the PC to look at the CD drive...or is that the wrong approach?

Many thanks for any help!

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by caperjack
Member Avatar for caperjack

My PC running Windows XP has been telling me it's been recovering from srious errors on startup for a few weeks now. I couldn't repair anything because it didn't tell me what was wrong.

Now my PC won't start. I get a black screen with white text telling me i have a missing or corrupt SYSTEM 32/SYSTEM CONFIG/SYSTEM file. Apparently that's the registry. I have inserted the Windows XP CD in the CD drive and restarted but there's no clue as to how to get to its contents.

I am supposed to press 'r' at the first screen to start repair. But there is no first screen. All I get is the same message over and over when I restart manually or press esc.

Is there something I can do to get the PC to look at the CD drive...or is that the wrong approach?

IMany thanks for any help!

put cdron drive ,boot computer ,do you hit a key when it says, hit any key to boot from cdrom. if you don't get that message then you may need to go into the bios to make sure its set to boot from cdrom first ,also if you have 2 cdrom in computer you need to put the cdrom in the master drive [first boot device],easy way to find what one is first is to just reboot with it in one drive [if nothing try other drive] drives .
anyway when you do get to to where you hit R for repair ,don't hit R hit to install windows instead ,and you should get a second screen where you can hit R ,this will install winxp over itself and should fix the system error ,did for me on more than onnce ,danger of loosing data ,although i never have .

If you don't get the second chance to hit R ,hit f3 to exit ,then reboot to the recover again and follow instructions on this site .
http://www.myfixes.com/articles/system

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