I was in the process of playing a game on my computer when I began experiencing difficulty playing it. Eventually, the program locked up and would not work causing me to have to do a hard boot. After this the computer came up with the following error message, “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:\Windows\system32\config\system you can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup sing the original setup cd rom. select r to repair.” It should be noted that it is accomapnied now by a clicking sound from the hard drive as it attempts to acces the os. Well, problem #1, I bought the pc with the software pre-loaded and no disk included, so I have neither the xp disk nor a startup disk. I then decided to try and boot in safe mode, and it spit out the same error message with some additional information regarding files in the same directory. I then tried to boot the computer using the ‘last good setting’ option. This did not work either, giving me the same message as the others. I will next attempt to find an xp disk that is the same as the one on my computer and try to repair the files but now I fear that it is something other than the operating system. My questions are: what do I do now? Is it possible that my hard drive just crashed? My dissertation is on here and I have not backed up in a few months. This would be devastating to me if I could not recover my document files. Someone please let me know, I am very concerned. Thanks.