Hi guys I need some help. I screwed around with my bios and rebooted. Now I get this message prior to winxp professional loading. "windows\system32\config\system. Safemode wont work. I booted off of my windows install cd and went to recovery console to replace the system file. But all I see in the dir is setup.exe, win51, win510 no directorys where i can search for this file. Any suggestions

erm what file ?
in the folder u mention are important user files ... nothing you really could get anywhere ... so whats the exact file you lost or is missing ???

Its the system file in c:\windows\system32\config\system.

ah yes I see ...
I do have this file ... like anybody does ... but as I said ... its a user based file ... in use while using windows ...
it cannont just be copied ...
ah yes I just looked into the file .... yes it is very user specific ... you will have no luck by copying it ...
the only chance you got is to restore the file from file system if possible ...
get the software easy recovery
http://www.ontrack.com/Homepage.aspx?id=...e=Software
and try to restore the file ... remember the file is unrecoverable as soon as it get overwritten ... so do not write any information to the disk !!!
if you are not able to recover the file you simply have to reinstall windows ...
there is no other chance

Put in your WinXP CD and do a fresh install, you may also perform a repair using the CD.

If you have time do a repair first, if it doesn't works, do a fresh install. Don't forget to backup your important files.

Good Luck.

I gave in and did an install over my existing winxp. One thing I did discover was I didnt have to call microsoft for a new serial number. Does anyone know how this file gets corupted? Happened to me twice. Gonna have to get a back prog to save these files anysuggestions which prog is the best?

erm if you say you worked in BIOS ... do you overclock your system ??

does you harddisk maay have hardware faults ... ( you can use easy recovery also to check for disk errors)

http://www.acronis.de get True Image 7 ... its not only a backup software ... its AWESOME ... backup during runting ... create a bootable recu CD and you can restore back your windows within 10 minutes with a copie exactly the same bit as before

Are you playing with the FSB or Memory thingy? If so that is not wired, because the signal loss in the midle of the processing cycle. The hardware just exceed it's capability.

for future reference remember to write down ALL of the settings that you changed while "screwing" around in BIOS so you can "unscrew" whatever you may have hosed. BIOS is NOT something to play with unless you have a general understanding of what goes on in there and how changes made will affect your computer. My advice would be to get a spare "learning" computer to play with so if you manage to trash it nothing of value except your time is lost and you can then get the satisfaction and knowledge from fixing it until the next time you kill it and get to go through diagnosing and repairing it all over again. I have a few "R&D" boxes that I use only for testing software, hardware and other tweaks on before deciding whether to use any of them on one of my actual work computers.

("gee Dr., I was only screwing around with this razor and accidentally cut my own throat...")

@ toosweet
Please, post info about your hardware. Especially for motherboard! I can bet it's with SIS chipset. And one more: I can bet your partitions are larger than 20GB, aren't they?
So, with that combination - SIS chipset and partitions larger than 20GB, the customer is supposed to see that message: "Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM " very often. And have to preinstall WinXP, or to restore that file, recording to that article: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_sys32.htm. But I made all nessesery - with the help of PartitionMagic now all my partitions are smaller than 20GB and I'm lucky!
Good luck!