XP Home New User wrote:
> I bought a XP Home loaded Desktop from best buy 3 years back. Thye
> gave me two restore CDs and no original OS CDs. Recently my desktop
> failed to boot up. When I tried booting up in safe mode - the message
> I got said ntoskrnel.exe not found. If I tried booting from last known
> good onfiguration etc, I got the message that Windows could not start
> because the following file is missing or corrupt :
> \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM on XP.
>
> I tried using restore CDs - but they mentioned that they will erase
> all data which I do not want to loose.
>
> I used bootable floppies also from microsoft home site but the system
> gets stuck in the very beginning saying that the setup is checking
> hardware configuration.
>
> I bought another internal harddrive and then replaced th old one with
> the new one and tries using restore but now the restore gives me a new
> error within a few minutes (the banner sayes PowerQuest migration
> systems) - it says Error # 1811 ; error reading from the image.
>
The reason you can't use the Restore with the new drive is that the old
drive has data on it that works with Restore. When the Restore program
looks for that data on the new drive, naturally it doesn't find it and
Restore fails. You would have to contact the computer mftr. to see what
to do in that case.
For your original problem, you can possibly fix it (assuming there is no
hardware failure) but only with a real XP cd. Either borrow one from a
friend that matches your installed version (XP Home OEM and the same
Service Pack level) or take the machine to a professional computer
repair shop (not a store like BestBuy). Have the repair shop retrieve
your data first and afterwards show you how to back up for future
protection.
Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
