Can't boot to Windows; Help!!

[El Jefe]

Ok I somehow screwed up big time. This is what happens to an old fart that
thinks he knows more than he does.

How I got here is not important, this is the problem:

Win XP Home with all updates issued untill last week.

I used a level one system restore to roll back to the original settings and
keep my files knowing that I would have to reinstall the programs for those
files.

Everything goes fine until the very end when the system should boot to
windows, the computer just hangs.

I tried to boot in safe mode and I get the error message (this is from my
memory the computer is back in my other location) that the following file is
missing or corrupt Win32\sysconfig.

I do not want to have to a system restore with a drive format, I need some
of the files very badly.

I know I should have backed up and I am kicking myself in the butt over and
over for not doing that, however self-abuse does not solve my problem.

All help would be greatly appreciated.

El Jefe

 

[Harry Ohrn]

The error message you mentioned isn't a true error message so I suspect you
are trying to recall what the error said. We really need to know the exact
error to help. You might want to see if anything here fits
http://www.google.com/search?source...-26,DVXA:en&q=WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG+missing

I'd suspect this one might be at the heart of the problem
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/

When you say you used a "level one system restore" what exactly do you mean
by that?

Anyway it sounds like you used System Restore to revert back to a very old
restore point and then ran a Repair Install. You mentioned that "how I got
here" wasn't important but it very well could be very important. For some
reason you decided to do the System Restore to a point so far back and you
also decided to do a Repair Install. Why did you do those 2 things? For
example did you have some reoccurring problem like system freezing or
crashes that forced you to do this or was you system running fine and you
simply wanted to experiment? It is important to know this because it can
speak to whether or not hardware problems could be part of the reason for
the mess you are in now.

If you do not have hardware problems then you might find biting the bullet
and doing a new fresh install will be the most time efficient way to correct
this. You can spend hours, even days trying to ferret out the problems that
may have been brought about by the route you took. I understand that you
have important data on the drive you need to get at and save. There are ways
to do that. Here are a couple of ways that many people use.

1) If you have access to a second computer system you can remove the hard
drive from the problem system and connect it as a "slave device" to the
second system. This typically involves moving a jumper (small connector on
the back of the drive) to the proper position which is usually shown on the
drive's label. Once the second system is booted it should recognized the
drive and display it in My Computer ready for you to copy files off.
or
2) Leave the hard drive in the system and use a bootable CD like this one
http://www.ubcd4win.com/ . It has a number of pre-installed applications
including CD/DVD recording software which will enable you to copy the files
you need off your hard drive to disc. It will even enable you to transfer
files across an network which is another option. The creation of this
bootable CD is dependant on you having access to an XP CD (not a recovery cd
but an actual XP CD).

good luck.

 

[El Jefe]

You are correct I am working from memory, my computer is at another location
now.
The message I received is Windows/System32/Config/System file missing or
corrupt.

What I meant when I said I did restore was a level one "System Recovery"
that allows to restore the system to the way it was shipped from the factory
while keeping program files such as excel or word documents.

I went to the Microsoft link you provided and I downloaded the guided help
to a CD and will attempt to restore the registry with its help.

Just as an aside the problem was caused by Microsoft when I had a browser
issue and sent an error message to Microsoft. I received back the message to
do a reg clean with their program. That did not help and I reversed the
process by using Microsoft uninstaller for the program and from that point
on everything just went down hill.

Lets just say I am not a big fan of the boys in Redmond OR.

The error message you mentioned isn't a true error message so I suspect
you
are trying to recall what the error said. We really need to know the exact
error to help. You might want to see if anything here fits
http://www.google.com/search?source...-26,DVXA:en&q=WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG+missing

I'd suspect this one might be at the heart of the problem
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/

When you say you used a "level one system restore" what exactly do you
mean
by that?

Anyway it sounds like you used System Restore to revert back to a very old
restore point and then ran a Repair Install. You mentioned that "how I got
here" wasn't important but it very well could be very important. For some
reason you decided to do the System Restore to a point so far back and you
also decided to do a Repair Install. Why did you do those 2 things? For
example did you have some reoccurring problem like system freezing or
crashes that forced you to do this or was you system running fine and you
simply wanted to experiment? It is important to know this because it can
speak to whether or not hardware problems could be part of the reason for
the mess you are in now.

If you do not have hardware problems then you might find biting the bullet
and doing a new fresh install will be the most time efficient way to
correct
this. You can spend hours, even days trying to ferret out the problems
that
may have been brought about by the route you took. I understand that you
have important data on the drive you need to get at and save. There are
ways
to do that. Here are a couple of ways that many people use.

1) If you have access to a second computer system you can remove the hard
drive from the problem system and connect it as a "slave device" to the
second system. This typically involves moving a jumper (small connector on
the back of the drive) to the proper position which is usually shown on
the
drive's label. Once the second system is booted it should recognized the
drive and display it in My Computer ready for you to copy files off.
or
2) Leave the hard drive in the system and use a bootable CD like this one
http://www.ubcd4win.com/ . It has a number of pre-installed applications
including CD/DVD recording software which will enable you to copy the
files
you need off your hard drive to disc. It will even enable you to transfer
files across an network which is another option. The creation of this
bootable CD is dependant on you having access to an XP CD (not a recovery
cd
but an actual XP CD).

good luck.



--

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell\User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp

Ok I somehow screwed up big time. This is what happens to an old fart
that
thinks he knows more than he does.

How I got here is not important, this is the problem:

Win XP Home with all updates issued untill last week.

I used a level one system restore to roll back to the original settings
and keep my files knowing that I would have to reinstall the programs for
those files.

Everything goes fine until the very end when the system should boot to
windows, the computer just hangs.

I tried to boot in safe mode and I get the error message (this is from my
memory the computer is back in my other location) that the following file
is missing or corrupt Win32\sysconfig.

I do not want to have to a system restore with a drive format, I need
some
of the files very badly.

I know I should have backed up and I am kicking myself in the butt over
and over for not doing that, however self-abuse does not solve my
problem.

All help would be greatly appreciated.

El Jefe

 

[Rolf Loeben]

You are correct I am working from memory, my computer is at another
location now. The message I received is
Windows/System32/Config/System file missing or corrupt.

Hi El, that system disk will not boot without this files repaired;
however, the disk will be readable.

So if you need those files on the disk, put the disk in question in an
USB-case and copy the files from there, using another computer, which
you obviously have.

Then I would do a repair/install, which will normally leave your data
and programs untouched, and work from there.


Rolf