need help quick, computer will not load os

[congobongo]

i was playing silent hill 2 last night for pc and all of a sudden the computer resets itself and then a black screen with something written on it saying that there the specific file is missing or corrupted. it also says that if you insert the original windows cd you can repair it on the first screen.

\windows\system32\config\system
this is what was either missing or corrupted.

can someone please help me solve this problem asap please.

i almost forgot, i'm using windows xp.

[Norgus]

did you try putting the origional windows CD in and resetting per cance? I think that would be a good idea. If your a very naughty person copy'd windows disks usually work as well as the origionals anyway

[congobongo]

how the hell do you do that?!

[MasJ]

Pop the cd in. In your BIOS, set it to boot to the CD.
Setup will load. Tell setup to repair your XP installation. Thats all +D

[congobongo]

i get this screen where it tells me to either:
press enter to install xp
press r to go to recovery console
press esc to exit

if i press r, it brings me to a dos window with c:<windows> prompt.

[congobongo]

never mind i solved it!
when you get the screen:
press enter to install xp
press r to go to recovery console
press f3 to exit
press r, when then press 1 and enter
you should now see "c:\<windows>" or something similar
then you type "cd system32\config" and press enter
then you type "copy ..\..\repair\system" and press enter
it will then ask you to overwrite the current file, you say yes or y
it will say that it has been performed
exit and don't boot the computer with the cd, see if it loads to windows.

[mj_1107]

once again he answered his own question...lol

[Deach]

Probly just getting up his post count up

[Dark Neighbour]

hey com'on, i had the same problem, but i ended up re-formatting instead of doing all that. my only words of wisdom are, BACKUP OFTEN!!! cause no doubt ur gonna run into a problem somewhere. Nice work CongoBongo, you get a vote from me!

[grantu2]

I had that same message happen to me. swaping the repair version of system32 is not a good fix to do as you'll lose some driver data and such. If you have windowsxp recovery doing an automatic recovery point automatically its better to follow Mircosoft.com soultion to manually repairing from a good recovery point, you'll need two computers to do this. Sorry I don't have the direct link, but its in microsoft's site under "recovery console" + restore.

[congobongo]

i answered my own question for those who may have encountered the same problem as i have. btw, the method that i have used will erase your driver data, just as what grantu2 mentioned. in my case, i don't often back things up, so i didn't have much of a choice.