Question
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Topic
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Corrupted System File …. Laptop won’t boot
LockedGood morning all,
I am after some guidance on what i can do about getting my laptop to boot up.
I have an ACER Travelmate 660, original software and no deviation from the image installed by the manufacturer. The Laptop has an OS of XP Pro SP1.Several days ago it started running slow and the HDD was continually ‘reading’. I logged off and shut down using normal log off.
When i went to run it back up again, power on and allow it to boot, i got an error message of –“Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupted: \Windows\System32\Config\system”
The next line that was there on the screen was:
“You can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup using the original setup cd-rom.
Select ‘r’ at the first screen to start repair”.What i have done to date:
#1. I used the recovery cd that came with my laptop to attempt a ‘repair’. I used the “HDD Non-destructive Rebuild” option. Therefore repairing without erasing my personal files. I observed that only drivers were been loaded off the cd and therefore once rebooted failed to boot successfully and the same error mesage appeared.
#2. I removed the laptop HDD out of the laptop and I have ‘mated’ the laptop hdd as a slave into my PC. The PC can see and read the laptop HDD (i did have some problems here, but its been sorted).
#3. I have successfully copied all of the data (everything) from the Laptop HDD to an external HDD, connected to my PC, using software call HDClone.
#4. While mated to the PC, i ran a Microsoft program called check disk (CHKDSK /r) and also defraged the drive as well. Several errors were found and corrected.
My question is …. what can i do now to correct or repair the corrupted \config\system file and get my laptop back??
I am trying to avoid a complete reformat of the drive, so other options at this point in time would be prefered.Thanks in advance for your advise and assistance.