Windows XP could not start because

[lizmac2008]

Hi. I have an old Vaio which I am using - a PCG SRX5 running XP SP1. I also have a TX1 with XP SP2. The Matshita drive in the TX1 stopped recognising DVDs months ago Now I am getting a message when I try to start Windows to "to try to repair" using original setup DVDs. These don't work. Sometimes the TXI will recognise CDs.
Question: can I use the original Sony recovery CDs that came with the old PCG SRX5 to repair the TX1? The old CDs are SP1 but the TX1 is SP2.
Many thanks.

Error is: Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

[Thalamus.]

Hi lizmac2008

welcome to Club Vaio..

Your TX1 has a hidden hard drive recovery partition which you can use to recover your vaio back to the original as new state.

Start your vaio and when you see the Vaio logo press the F10 key repeatedly, this should start the recovery process..

Make sure you back up your important data first though..

Edit: No you can not use the old PCG SRX5 disc's on your TX1..

[lizmac2008]

Thanks so much for that. Is there anyway I can do a repair rather than a complete recovery as I am just about to buy TZ and need to get a couple of things off the TX1.

[Blencogo]

Sounds like a damaged System Hive.

Can you borrow a XP Pro installation CD? If you can, you can boot into the Recovery Console and restore a backup of the hive.

Have a look here: -

Corrupt Hive in XP

[lizmac2008]

Thanks Blencogo. Am away from home at the moment but have a XP cd there.
Meanwhile, can I run check disc from the F10 recovery partition?

[Blencogo]

Unfortunately you need a Microsoft Installation Disc to boot into the Recovery Console. Anyone's disc will do as you are not using the lisence at all - just the facility to boot to the Recovery Console.

It has always been an annoying problem that OEM Discs do not allow this facility - either from the HDD or Recovery Discs.

[lizmac2008]

Thanks very much. Will try that.

[lizmac2008]

Hi
Followed the good advice but something strange is happening……….

To begin with the laptop would not start – power button would not light up. Then I used the power supply for the other laptop and the battery started charging. After about 10 minutes, I was able to get a green light from the power button and the machine started. Then I ran the XP recovery and all was okay.

Then I decided to back up the D drive to a Lacie. I got half way through my emails, which I store on the D drive when the laptop went dead. No lights, power, nothing. Started it up again and decided to run Norton on the D drive. It got to the same place and the laptop went completely dead again.

Started it again with check disk at startup and got log below. Any ideas please? HD failure? Power problem? The C drive seems to be fine.

Liz


Event Type:Information
Event Source:Winlogon
Event Category:None
Event ID:1001
Date:23/12/2007
Time:00:42:20
User:N/A
Computer:VAIOT1
Description:
Checking file system on 😧
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is VAIO.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up 22 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 22 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 22 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.

12193303 KB total disk space.
9156045 KB in 30444 files.
11500 KB in 2061 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
45814 KB in use by the system.
2048 KB occupied by the log file.
2979943 KB available on disk.

512 bytes in each allocation unit.
24386606 total allocation units on disk.
5959886 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
b0 9d 00 00 04 7f 00 00 be bd 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
12 0b 00 00 00 00 00 00 34 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........4.......
10 e4 5f 08 00 00 00 00 90 16 8d 36 00 00 00 00 .._........6....
c0 d8 0b 08 00 00 00 00 10 33 8e e1 06 00 00 00 .........3......
40 a8 bb a8 00 00 00 00 00 cf e5 d9 07 00 00 00 @...............
99 9e 36 00 00 00 00 00 d0 3b 07 00 ec 76 00 00 ..6......;...v..
00 00 00 00 00 36 d7 2e 02 00 00 00 0d 08 00 00 .....6..........


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