My daughter has asked me to help her get her Dell Dimension 8400 back in service. It has xp home on it. She has neither the o/s nor the recovery Cd's. I have done much research on the web to seek solutions for the message she gets early in the start-up boot process which is "\windows\system32\config\system " error message. I have windows xp pro on disc and my wife has xp media recovery on disc. I believe that neither of them are applicable to this problem on my daughter's computer. At start-up the dos window displays the 1st 6 of the items listed and stops. The 7th i presume is the beginning of the missing or corrupt files.
I have been to this page which seems to offer a solution and have downloaded and burned to a CD the suggested program (file)
http://www.schrockinnovations.com/makeboot1.php . I can get into the "windows advanced options window" however none of the options will alter the outcome. Nor does starting the computer with the created CD change anything either. Suggestions would be appreciated. truenorth
P.S. Her computer does not have a floppy drive but we do have an external usb connectable floppy drive. Plus a multitude of flash drives.
PPS. I changed the boot order from sata hdd #1 to Cd #1 .