Guest mlc Posted September 12, 2008 Posted September 12, 2008 Ok, the system was working fine and then the next morning I booted it up and a screen came up and said that windows could not start due to windows\system32\config\system was corrupted. I tried recovery console and that did not show my windows installation. It did not even prompt me for a password. I tried running chkdsk and that didn't work. If I try md test it fails with access denied. Then I tried rebooting and going into windows install, pressed f8 and then I wanted to try to repair the installation. However that option was not given to me and it showed that I had an unpartitioned drive. I could only create a partition. I don't want to lose my stuff on there, so what can I do? I don't think my partition is gone because of the registry corruption message.
Guest Pegasus \(MVP\) Posted September 12, 2008 Posted September 12, 2008 Re: Can't boot into windows xp "mlc" <mlc6670@gmail.com> wrote in message news:a442ca38-abae-4be3-a543-4d3289947fe2@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com... > Ok, the system was working fine and then the next morning I booted it > up and a screen came up and said that windows could not start due to > windows\system32\config\system was corrupted. I tried recovery > console and that did not show my windows installation. It did not > even prompt me for a password. I tried running chkdsk and that didn't > work. If I try md test it fails with access denied. Then I tried > rebooting and going into windows install, pressed f8 and then I wanted > to try to repair the installation. However that option was not given > to me and it showed that I had an unpartitioned drive. I could only > create a partition. I don't want to lose my stuff on there, so what > can I do? I don't think my partition is gone because of the registry > corruption message. By the sound of it you don't have any backups of your important files. If so then it is very dangerous to try and repair the damage - you might destroy whatever is left. Your first step should be to salvage your data. Remove the hard disk, then connect it as a slave disk to some other WinXP system and save your data. Post again when this step is complete. The second step is fairly obvious: Since you appear to have important files on your disk, you MUST back them up to and independent medium at regular intervals, e.g. weekly. A 2.5" disk in an external USB case is a highly effective backup medium is surprisingly inexpensive.
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