Windows won't boot

[iv76erson03]

After the IBM startup screen, it goes blank for awhile and says Windows could not start 'windows\system32\config\system' is corrupt or missing and it says to insert the windows cd to repair. I have a backup copy of windows xp that i'm pretty sure works. Anyone know how i can get back into windows?

[k2jsv]

Recovery console.

Boot the XP disk and follow the prompts as you would for a fresh install. Select the repair option. That should at least get you good to go to at least boot into Windows and be able to back up your files if nothing else got borked.

[aaa]

before that:
do a chkdsk, from the same recovery console, and see if that works.
use any registry backups (long shot, I know, there usually aren't any)


The "system" hive is part of the registry, and really not replaceable. If it gets nuked, so do most of the programs you installed, so you may as well do a repair install (without format) as the end result we be the same. However, if you have a semi-recent backup of the registry, then you can restore things to mostly exactly how they were without a reinstall.