Make your Hard disk as a slave and use another hard disk to boot your pc up to XP.

You can use your slave disk and don't have de badpooler warning.

I had the same windows\system32\config\system - missing or corrupt

tried everything that has been mentioned so far.
I yanked out the SATA hard drive and put it as a secondary to another brand new machine. I can see my hard drive just fine, so I am going to pull all my files off and put them on a external USB drive.
I am running the hard drive error-checker on it right now.
What else can I do to save this hard drive, can I change the registry to an earlier time?????

I have the exact same problem. My computer says \windows\system32\config\system....missing or corrupt.
then it says please put in the windows CD you first used to start up your computer. press ' r ' at the first screen. So i put in the CD then my comp restarts but then goes back the same screen. i press ' r ' but it just restarts again. it wont go to the first windows screen as it says. I need major help quick! any ideas?

but im not getting any "bad pool" error as other people.

I have had this quite a few times recently on different computers and have come up with a simple solution.
I've detailed it on my blog http://www.webechodesigns.com/blog/2006/08/repair-windowssyste...ystem.html

I hope that helps you out.


Webecho

In some instances and particularly where this re-occurs it may be due to weak or failing sectors on the Hard Drive. This is why Chkdsk has worked in some instances. A good hard drive scanner like Avast's Chkdsk or Spinrite will fix this problem. I always boot to a CD with my tools on it and run a thorough check before doing anything else. If bad sectors are found I keep repeating the check until I get a run through with no errors found.

Caution: While these utilities normally will not cause a data loss, back up important files if you can.
Important Note: Hard drive sectors going bad may indicate the hard drive is beginning to fail.

I have the same problem!

When I tried to type 'R' to repair, Recovery Console ask me to choose the installation.
I type 1 (Since I have only one system on C:\Windows)
and....nothing happens (I wait for about 2 hours and the system just do nothing (It is not a crash or freeze))!

Please any help
MT

Hi and omg, you have no idea how good it is to hear I'm not alone on this one but at the same time I'm sad you've experienced this error.

If you're a real techie and like to help people out, boy I could do with it right now.

It all started with that WINDOWS\STSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEMS error. I had experienced this a year ago and my local computer repair guy sold me the upgrade disc to windows XP which worked, I hadn't got a disc with the complete XP because my computer already had it on and I wasn't aware I had to make my own!
Anyway, when I got to the bit where you hit 'r' to repair it was asking for te full XP disk. I heard that if I bought one it would wipe everything off the computer putting it back to factory settings.
Having made the school boy error of notbacking all my work up, i badly needed to get files back from the hard drive.

To make matters worse, I dropped the bloody laptop for the very first time in 2 years and now it's not even displaying anything on the screen. It powers up for the first 2 seconds then the Hard Drive clicks and it turns off only to start the fan again 5 seconds later but still nothing on the screen!!!!!

I have no idea what to do. I own a business and I have far too much info on the hard drive to see it gone forever and most of the data is under the data protection rights with vast amounts of company info that I would really like to protect so I do not want to take it into the shop.

Here's the questions:
I've seen another hard drive for sale on ebay, it's exactly the same and reasonably cheap so I was thinking of buying it and ripping mine out to then ask the shop to make the laptop work.
the other question is how do I gain access to the data on my other hard drive? i have another PC in the office, surely there is something I can buy and connect it up to the other PC?

Finally, I'd lke to thank you all for your help on this.

Much appreciated.

sounds like you've had one of those weeks!

As far as the laptop goes, i'm not able to suggest anything apart from take it to the shop and get someone to find out whats wrong, It could be so many things.

For your data, the easiest way is to remove the hard drive from the laptop, buy an external 2.5" hard drive case with USB ($15 AUD on ebay, probably $30 from your local computer shop), once the drive is installed in the case (very simple), connect it to another computer and you can access all the data.
It also means if you do have to buy a new laptop you have no 'schoolboy excuses" lol, not to back up onto that spare drive regularly!
NOTE: This is assuming the hard drive wasn't physically damaged in the drop, but it's the cheapest way to start. If the HD is stuffed then your talking data recovery and that's expensive.

If you're not confident with removing the hard disk etc, then most computer shops should be able to remove it and case it for you, just with added 'labour' costs.


hope that helps you get started

I am so behind with all of this techie stuff, I come from a place where music was on tape, a computer was something the government had and a VHS video recorder actually stopped time just by pressing pause!

Thank you so much for your time. I'll rip the HD out and try to retrieve the data back myself.
Then I think I'll just buy another laptop and put this whole thing down to a bad experience and transfer the data across, making sure to back up, back up and note to self, back up.

Thanks again.

Hi Richard
It may be a silly question but...
Have you opened the laptop and checked that the RAM is installed correctly, the hard disk cable hasn't fallen out etc or the cable that runs from the motherboard to the screen hasn't come loose?

It's quite posible that any one of these happened during the "drop" and might fix the lot - it could save you a packet mate

Hi again,

Nothing is obviously loose and I have bought an external HD case and thrown it into the USB, it was only £15. Anyway, I can't access my much needed documents.
I am told my account is not accessible.
Bugger!

I've tried rebooting from the start and again I've got system32\config\systems message and when I try to boot in safe mode it just starts the windows XP on the main computer!

Circles round and round, wish I was a little clued up.
I'm likely to break this main PC soon by sheer frustration!

Richard
Are you booting the laptop and getting the windows\sytem32... message?
If you are then at least the laptop is working.

Which computer is giving windows\system32... error? Laptop or main?


Let me know and we'll try and sort it

Hi, I'm facing the same problem, but trying to get through recovery system is the hard part because the blue screen of death keeps popping up. I read on this forum that if you remove any usb devices and disable it from the bios, the blue screen wont pop up anymore, but I still get the same blue screen error. I'm trying to get to the Recovery System, but everytime it ask me to choose the installation. I pick "1 C:Windows" and afterwards, the blue screen would pop up so I couldn't get to the next step of recovering the files.

I am trying to recover most of my files, but I can't seem to find my bookmarks for FireFox and that's the most important thing. I don't want to reformat yet...unless it is the LAST thing that can solve everything.

Please help.

Im 123
I would say in this situation, the simplest option is to attach this hard drive to another computer (if you have one available). It can be installed internally, put in an external drive box or with a USB to SATA/IDE cable (check eBay for cheap options on the last two).

Once you've hooked the drive up to another computer, boot from the XP CD and go into the recovery console, choosing the working hard disk as the windows installation.

Follow the intructions on repairing, windows\system32\config\system etc
It would also be worth running FIXMBR and FIXBOOT while you are there (on the 'broken' disk). e.g. FIXBOOT E:

To find out what the drive letter is on your 'broken' drive, type:
MAP at the command prompt, this will show a list of drives connected to the computer.

If you're concerned about retrieving your Firefox bookmarks etc, before you disconnect the 'broken' drive, boot to windows and just copy the Firefox folders to a folder on the working computer for retrieval alter.

When your usual computer is back up and running with the working disk, try downloading Google Browser Sync for Firefox, that way all your bookmarks are stored away from yur computer, to get them back just log in and sychronise them.


Hope that helps you out Im 123, let us know how you got on please.


webecho

Thanks for the suggestion webecho. I am using a new hard drive with a new Window Xp installation, but I don't know exactly how I'm going to get my old hard drive to work. The other SATA slot on my motherboard broke so I only have one SASTA slot and the new hard drive is plugged in to that one. I immediately bought an enclosure so I can restore my movies and homework. I'm running the old hard drive via USB with an enclosure. Not sure if It'll work, but I'm gonna give it a try.

Well...ok...there's two other SATA RAID plugs I found on my motherboard, but I don't know much about SATA Raid to really use it and I look up my motherboard manual about it, but I really can't figure out much on it. It's really p**sing me off because I have such a major disadvantage with only one SATA slot available for one hard drive at a time. Isn't there a way I can just bypass the stupid blue screen that said "Bad_POOL" and all that? I know there gotta be some way.

Hi, I have the same problem as someone else posted earlier. When I get to the recovery console and it asks which drive I want to log on to (I answer 1, as it is my only drive), I then hit enter and nothing happens. I have left it for multiple hours and it does nothing, what do i do?

hi guys same problems as you all, except nothing has worked for me so far
the comp in qs is only a few weeks old and i would think for the money i paid shouldnt be doing this
but anyways these things happen
it first started i got home and turned my comp on and it would just keep restarting at the windows load up screen, then it kept going to the " choose configuration " screen where i would chose every 1 and yet same thing, restart...
i left it over nite, and came to it this morning and well now its coming up with that missing windws file!
i cannot access the recovery console cause everytime it just restarts when i type R,
is there any other way to do this? im assuming not, and i dont want to try a full formatt as i have data i need kept...

just wondering what else could be done, otherwise will have to try and take it back to get it looked at,

thanks
sean

Hi Sean
If you can't even get into the recovery console, you're a bit limited in your options, I would have suggested FIXBOOT and FIXMBR, but you need recovery console ...
Re-installing XP doesn't mean you have to reformat you hard disk, It will however mean that you have to set all your preferences again and anything in My Documents / Pictures / Videos etc will be lost.

If you do end up re-installing, one trick I've used for years on my computer and those I've set up / repaired for others, is to immediately rename My Documents > My Safe Documents, naturally do the same with my videos, my pictures etc.
The if you do have to re-install Xp it won't copy over any files in those folders.
It is also worth setting a regular nightly backup of the Documents and Settings folder to Safe Documents and Settings, it can even be on the same hard disk if you do not have a spare.

While hard disk failure will mean you lose your data, if it's a windows problem, you can safely reinstall Xp without automatically losing ALL your settings.

The same goes with Program files etc.

I'm sorry this doesn't help yopu directly but if you follow these basic rules it can save a lot of time effort and annoyance in future.

HTH


webecho

I have just had this come up! I don't have the original Set-Up Disk (lost it/can't find it etc). What can I do?! Please help!!