System32\config\system corrupted file

[jjzimm02]

My fiance has a HP athlon laptop that runs windows xp the problem I'm having started started as a system32\config\system corrupted or missing file error when I tried booting xp so i used my recovery disk and tried the windows solution found here (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/en-us) I got through the first step and went to restart my computer as instructed. As windows was booting up I received a different error this time system32\driver\ntfs.sys corrupted or missing file so i followed the instructions from here (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555531/en-us) after completion of the instructions I restarted my computer as instructed and the same error came up. So I performed a chkdsk c: command to analyze the drive please note that i did not use /p or /r commands I simply wanted to analyze the drive. Well at 34% through the process it gave me the volume has unrecoverable errors message. Unfortunately there is not a backup disk for the computer and there are important school homework assignments on the computer. I would like to know what my next course of action should be.

Thanks in advance,
Jeff

[jjzimm02]

After quite a bit of research and to save others time a windows boot disk from dell will not work on a hp laptop for making repairs to the OS. According to hp this is what caused my ntfs.sys error. so now I just have to wait for HP to send me their Boot disk. And hope that it really is what happened

[Michael Chiew]

Try this:

Get into the Command Prompt. Once you're in, do the following:

From the C:\ drive: type:

C:\cd /Windows/System32/Drivers (enter)

C:\Windows/System32/Drivers: ren ntfs.sys ntfs.old (enter)

C:\Windows/System32/Drivers cd.. (enter)

C:\cd /i386 (enter)

C:\i386 Expand ntfs.sys C:\Windows\System32\Drivers (enter)

You should be all right after replacing the faulty ntfs.sys in your Windows/System32/Drivers folder.

What the command line above does is to extract from the folder i386 a clean copy of the NTFS.sys file and transfer it to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers folder.

Folder i386 contains all the OS files (7,505 files in 11 directories).

These files are all compressed (like cabinet files), and need to be extracted in order to have them functioning normally.,

Michael Chiew

[Keymaker]

The hard drive may be going to pasture. The next course of action I would take is to backup that data ASAP. There are many ways about that. Either using a software solution or by using and external USB to IDE (PATA) or SATA drive reader and plunging the drive into another computer to copy/save from it. This is a laptop so you need a laptop USB to IDE reader. They make small readers for laptops as well. eBay has all kinds! I own many.

I would try hdtune out and see if you have any errors. Specifically on what SMART says. Don't know if you will be able to install hdtune.

Ask HP for a restore CD. Or is that what you mean by boot disk? However, following what was said in the Microsoft links would require you to have the disk.

I have had problems like this before that I created myself. Willing knowing I might cause things to go bad. I had to restore my boot.ini, ntdetect.com and ntldr. I did this by using ubcd4win.

[jjzimm02]

Got the hp cdand unfortunately think the harddrive is going bad with the since I got a 1720 smart hd error and my hd memory test failed at 10%