Im screwed

[mates]

My computer durring boot says it can't continue because the file windows/system32/config is missing or corrupt i just wanna make sure that im SOL or if its fixable im running Asus with an Athlon 64 I think but its not like that'll help if anyone one could help it would be greatly appreciated

[fr33k]

just try n do a repair install or something

[xierox]

You're not screwed. You can repair your operating system while retaining all your settings and accounts (if everything goes correctly).

Here's a guide to help you: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

- X

[nihil]

Hi,

The first question is whether you have a full Windows installation disk or not. If your machine is fairly recent and is a "brand name" then this is probably not the case and you will have some sort of "recovery disk" or partition.

In that situation you should follow the manufacturer's recovery instructions.

However, the first thing to try is hit the F8 key on startup and look for the option: "Boot using last known good configuration".......... believe it or not that sometimes works, and is a hell of a lot easier that using the Recovery Console or a Repair Install.

The first thing you need to consider is why this has happened? Frequently it is a symptom of a failing hard drive, so there is no point in doing anything more than recovering your data and starting afresh with a replacement drive.

You should find links to HDD maufacturer's diagnostics tools here:

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

Get the one appropriate to your drive and run it first. If it passes then continue with your repair process.

Even if the F8 option works, you should still run the disk diagnostics.

[mates]

Yeah i dont actually have a copy of Xp on a disk but I know someone who does. I'm kinda hoping it is my HDD because it would give me a reson to upgrade. I think its SCSI its about time to upgrade to SATA. thanks for your help.

[morganlefay]

Wow...update from SCSI to SATA

I would think that a downgrade....

MLF

[SirDice]

Yeah, let's replace all our server's scsi disks for sata

Seriously though, it would be a downgrade (throughput wise) only if you're currently running on scsi3 or higher
But SCSI still does have some other plus points.

That said, I haven't seen much consumer/workstation PCs with SCSI or servers with S-ATA for that matter but they do exist..
And IIRC Asus did (or still does) make boards with onboard SCSI.

[morganlefay]

Plus points would be ...reliability, reliability, reliability,

I was recently at the local tech shop...and they were talking about SATAs and the failure rate..and how the SATAs will work work work...then die...no warning, no click click click, no slowdowns or IO errors.

I have definatly experienced a performance boost with SATAs in workstations....although I was using IDE before.


MLF