Windows File Corrupt

[a7med_360]

Hey im running vaio AR21s widows xp mce, today i restarted my computer afer istallig live update for my Norton, and as the laptop was booting up i got the boot options(which is a first) it gave me the safe mode options etc....but whe i chose any of them (boot widows normally was my main goal here) i received an error msg saying

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\Windows\System32\Cofig\System"

and i have so much important data on the the driver, i was going to do a system recovery but was worried everything might get deleted.

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!

sorry for any problems reading what im writing im using my old DELL laptop and the key "N" does not work properly

[MattWilson]

If you can get hold of a XP MCE disc you can do a recovery on that, which will replace all the system information. I don't know whether you can do this using the vaio recovery medium.

[a7med_360]

At the bottom it says

"You ca attempt to repair this file by sarting widows setup using the origial setup CD-ROM
Select 'R' at the first screen to start repair"

ive created the recovery discs already of my driver/utilities and the main system recovery, so any ideas?

[MattWilson]

This is where you need the Media centre disc. Do you know anyone who owns a disc?

You may be able to download one through a bittorrent client as you only need the disc.

[a7med_360]

wouldnt that be saved onto my recovery discs because it hold the OS which is the XP MCE

[MattWilson]

I don't think it works quite like that but i may be wrong. You can use a bittorrent client like Azureus and download this torrent . Burn it to the discs and that should sort you out.

Other than that i don't really know.

[a7med_360]

Not the greatest fan of torrent here......but i must knw will my data be deleted, because what i hold is beyond important, if some one can assure me that it wont be deleted, because so far even though the windows is corrupt the data is still there but if i do system recvover with the sony cd's this will cause recovery back to factory state, so that sounds to me like a formatting more or less

[MattWilson]

Using the recovery discs or partition as far as i know reformats the whole drive and will delete all the data. Using the orignal disc from the torrent will insure that only the system files are overwritten.

Basically i cannot promise that the vaio recovery will keep your data in tact.

[Blencogo]

Hi,

You have a corrupted Registry and the usual way to sort this is to open in the Recovery Console and use System Restore to replace your Registry with the last one saved. To enter the Recovery Console, you will need to borrow a XP Pro installation disc.

The procedure to follow is shown in Microsoft KB307545

Before you do this it is worth trying to boot into Safe Mode and choose System Restore. This would be a simple solution - provided you can boot into Safe Mode.

[a7med_360]

I found the solution http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545 but im not sure how to execute it.... main thing it says:

"When you finish this procedure, the system returns to a state very close to the state before the problem occurred. If you have ever run NTBackup and completed a system state backup, you do not have to follow the procedures in parts two and three. You can go to part four."

but with my experience with computers pressing f12 or just entering the cd will take u to the recovery console of windows......but with vaio it goes to the recovery of vaio ad stuff.