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missing or corrupt \Windows.. help needed
I need help with what I think is a haunted computer. I posted this in the Hard Drive forum thinking it was a hard drive problem, but since, have been told that it may be an OS problem. I received the error message "Windows could not start becausae the following file is missing or corrupt \Windows\system32\config\system". From reading some of the other messages, I changed the boot order, did a diagnostic test (express) good. I was going to try the repair option, from recovery but when the computer rebooted, i received 2 quick beeps, and received "Diskette drive 0 Seek Failure, Strike F1 to continue, F2 to run Setup." When I try to run Setup, I get
"Setup did not find any hard drives installed in you computer. Make sure any hard disk drives are powered and properly connected.. setup cannot continue. F3 to quit." I've tried it several times, and can't seem to get anywhere. Can anyone help?
Dimension 8400
Windows XP
Pentium 4 Prescott DT, 3.2GHZ,
1 MEGB, 800FSB
160GB, Serial ATA
GCON
Denny,
Thank you so much for the information, it worked. However I was unble to restore/repair. I wound up doing a reinstall of the operating system. I am still trying to uncover programs that are still on my hard drive but not listed as being installed because of the new install of the OS, Right now I can not install my virus protection program (Norton) the right way, it is still on my hard drive, but the new OS doesn't list it as being there, and it won't let me delete the folder or install another copy on top of it. Can you, or anyone else offer any assisstance in getting my virus protection program reinstalled?
GCON2591
Denny Denham
2 Intern
•
18798 Posts
90
0
Posted February 18th, 2005 13:00
A repair reinstall will not correct the problem, which is a corrupted registry. For that see the information here. For the hard drives message on an 8400 see this.