Win XP error message "...Corrupt Or Missing File"

[gonaads]

On the computer at work we have XP Home Edition. The computer use to be at my Boss's house, he decided to bring it to work and get rid of the old wind up box with win95 on it.

For the last few days when we boot up this computer (the XP one) we get this error message, rite after the "post".

And it goes sumtin like dis...

WINDOWS COULD NOT START BECAUSE THE FOLLOWING FILE IS MISSING OR CORRUPT:
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

YOU CAN ATTEMPT TO REPAIR THIS FILE BY STARTING WINDOWS SETUP USING THE ORIGINAL SETUP CD-ROM.

SELECT 'r' AT THE FIRST SCREEN TO START REPAIR.



Now I tried the repair console and I got nothing. The thing is that if we reset or restart the computer two (2) or three (3) times it will boot fine. But sometimes the theme apperance is now the "Classic Windows" style. And if I right click the desktop and go to properties, the XP syle of desktop is nowhere to be found. That's when I have to do a system restore. We are not running any theme proggies on this system and no tweaks of any kind. Also it does NOT have SP1 on it. He does have quite a few updates installed but it has been quite a while since it has been updated again.

I usually will do a system restore when the theme is not the same as it was. Then everything is fine. It does not do this always but it is somewhat annoying.

It did it again today and I just reset the computer and it restarted fine and the theme is fine also.

There are NO viruses nor Adware on this computer.

*ME CONFUSED*

Need some clues and help please.



AMD Athlon 1.2 Ghz CPU
nVidia Gforce2 32 MB
256 MB RAM
Maxtor HDD
Sound Blaster Live
Asus A7PRO MoBo
Netgear FA310TX

 

[damnyank]

You mentioned a System Restore - actually, you could try it and if it doesn't correct the problem - you can always "undo" the system restore and you'll be back where you started.

So I can't see what you have to lose by trying a system restore.

 

[gonaads]

I HAVE do it... about four (4) times now. It is still the same. What I have been thinking is going back two (2) or three (3) weeks on the restore. I am debating that option at the moment.

 

[damnyank]

Go 4 it - you always have the undo!!

 

[Tinker]

How about a defrag? Run check disk...

You are about to face a non-recoverable crash IMHO. The HDD has damaged the files during the move from you boss's house and work. I would retrieve (back up) all needed files and do a clean install of the O.S.....



:happy:

 

[gonaads]

Been thinking THAT also... have done defrag and such. just did restore from last month. So now gonna shut down and see.

If it takes a dump it's on him. I am not gonna fix it. I have done that tooooo many times with the other Machine he had. Me is DONE WITH THAT. He dosen't know squat 'bout Computers.

It may have to do with his Palm Pilot, He had installed a "Data Shield" Proggy for his Palm. Looking through the restore points it has turned up (more than once) around the same times as I have restored this damn thing. Let's hope and see.

 

[gonaads]

Well it booted O.K. but the damn theme scheme is again "Classic" style.

Well sh!t... I'm gonna just hit the restart button and boot it that way every time the error message pops up, until the damn thing dies.

Unless someone out their knows the answer to this...

 

[baser5nature]

i had this problem just the other day... i was getting the same message regarding "pci.sys", and when i tried using the recovery console it wouldn't load either saying the same thing about a "setup.*" file (i don't recall exactly which one)...

weird thing was that sometimes it would boot ok.. but mostly not...

i searched the forums and google for half a day... people said it was overheating...nope... people said many things but none of them really applied to my situation...

until finally i disabled the fast boot option in the bios... turns out it was bad memory luckily i had three sticks and it was the 32mb stick... so no real loss... since removing the bad stick the overall system performance has actually increased... it may have been only pc100 and the other two are pc133, which was most likely a problem in itself...

so what i'm sayin is... check the ram...