Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Missing or Corrupt windows/system32 Challenge and More

by Mar 29, 2012 7:13AM PDT

Hello all,

My system is a generic desktop, with WinXP Pro SP3, 1t gig drive, 4g ram, i5 mobo.

I have corrupted the registry somehow. Upon trying to defrag the registry, after a BSOD with CCleaner, I could not reboot. I received the following message: Window could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\system32\config\SYSTEM. you can attempt to repair ... using the original Setup CD-ROM. Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair.

I have inserted my setup CD and the system will not boot with it with the following message: "Setup cannot locate the Windows installation you want to upgrade."

How I got there, I do not know. I have tried making and using various boot up discs and other suggested methods from these forums and others, including ones for making a Recovery Console disc, to no avail. I have read ms.com take on how to approach it, nothing has worked so far.

Let me know if there is something more I can tell you or something which I have not done, yet, and can do to achieve a better outcome without losing any data or programs, if they are not gone already.

TIA for your time and input.. bo1953

Discussion is locked

2 Posts
- Collapse + Expand Details
- Collapse -
Answer
Is this some SATA drive?
by Forum moderator Mar 29, 2012 7:15AM PDT

If so, that message is well discussed.

As to DEFRAG THE REGISTRY, there is nothing to be gained by doing that. It's a database so any defragging must be something a marketing weasel dreamed up. Great way to toast a working system in my opinion.

Take this as a lesson about registry cleaners in general. Avoid them unless you have a full system backup.
Bob

- Collapse -
Answer
Re: system missing or corrupt
by Forum moderator Mar 29, 2012 8:57PM PDT
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545 tells how to fix this. The first part of the procedure (renaming and copying) might be easier done after booting from a Linux Live disk, but this should work also. It surely doesn't involve upgrading. Moreover, such a message would only come a few steps after booting from that disk, so it's rather mysterious what failed and why.

Let me add that the one time I've seen this message on one of my XP PC's I solved it by running chkdsk from the recovery console in repair mode, while printing these instructions from another PC and looking for my Linux disk. I'd used the recovery console to be certain the file could be found. It could, so I thought it was corrupted. But being in the recovery console I did a chkdsk just to be sure the file system was fully OK. It said it found something to repair and after that was done the issue with that registry file was solved. An amazing and mysterious happening.

The worst thing that can happen (apart from hardware failures) is that you have to do a clean install of Windows. Then you will only lose the data and programs you thought so unimportant that you didn't make a backup of them. Losing a few unimportant things can hardly be important.
And even then you can save the data (not the programs) by copying them to an external hard disk from a Linux Live boot disk, so you only lose a few unimportant programs.

But, as I said, if there are no hardware issues the procedure from Microsoft should work.

Kees
Back to Windows Legacy OS forum

CNET Forums

Operating Systems
Software
Electronics & Gadgets
Hardware
Tablets & Mobile Devices
General Help
Brand Forums
Roadshow Autos
Off Topic

Other Forums

Forum Info