Computer was acting up and I had to restore to a past restore point.
Now the computer keeps rebooting itself and when I try to boot in safe mode it says system not fully installed.

And gives the error: windows\system32\configsystem is missing or corrupted

hello 'FemaleCS_EE,
before this have u installed anything?

Yes, Spore, just under a month a go.
It was acting fine until yesterday, when all the problems started.

Hello,
Do you have your windows XP CD? If you do, I want you to put it in and turn on your computer. When you are given the message press any key to boot from cd..., press a key and Windows Setup will start. At the first screen where you have to enter input, hit R to enter the Recovery Console. Then you will have to hit 1 to log into your windows installation and then just hit Enter for the Administrator password because it is normally blank unless you changed it. Once you are at the command prompt C:\WINDOWS I want you to type each of the following, hitting enter after each line:

• attrib -s -h -r c:\boot.ini
• del c:\boot.ini
• bootcfg /rebuild
• fixboot

Now type Exit and take your XP CD out. Your computer will reboot itself. Post back how things are going.
You may also wish to run check disc
Note:If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you want to access from the Recovery Console.

• When you are prompted to do so, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.
• At the Recovery Console command prompt, type the following then press Enter:
  

  chkdsk /r

• Allow this to run UNDISTURBED until completed (45 min or so)
• Report any errors

hi there FemaleCS_EE.

as a follow up, if chkdsk /r wont work, please do the following steps. works for me everytime i helped someone with that missing file problem. hopefully it's not hardware related though.

Step I. Access the reconvery console using the OS CD. as suggested already you need to have your OS CD to repair it.

To run the Recovery Console from the Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD-ROM, use the following steps:

Insert the Windows XP startup disk into the floppy disk drive, or insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer.
Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted to do so.
When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console and follow the process till you will be at the recovery console command prompt.Getting to the Windows Recovery Console

STEP II. At the Recovery Console command prompt, type the following lines(in blue) then press enter after.

1. cd \ ( Note: between "cd" and "\" there should be a "blank space" else the command won''''t work )
2. cd system~1\_resto~1

If it gives an error "Access Denied" while accessing the folder, follow the method below

cd \ <Enter>
cd windows\system32\config <Enter>
ren system system.bak<Enter>
exit<Enter>

Thenrestart the computer and follow step I.

3. dir

when you hit <Enter> it will list all the restore points folders like rp1,rp2................ we have to see the last restore point to copy the file from a recent backup. if the restore points have more than one page then u have keep on hitting the <Enter> key to view the last restore point folder.

4. cd rp {the last restore point no. } (Note : Example : cd rp9, if rp9 is the last restore point, where last restore point no.=9 )

5. cd snapshot

Now the command Prompt will look like this c:\system~1\_resto~1\rp9\snapshot> ( Note : restore point 9 assumed for clarity of the content, you have to goto the last restore point folder as described in the previous lines) Now according to the error message we have to copy the appropriate file from the restore point folder.

6. copy _registry_machine_system c:\windows\system32\config\system
7. Type Exit then press enter. your computer should restart and don't forget to cross your fingers! haha i can't find the right emoticon..xD

hope that helps.
best of luck.

This post has been edited by silverphoenix: Oct 2 2008, 08:49 PM

Thanks HFCG and silverphoenix,

Didn't get a chance to try anything, brother decided he would just use his system recovery disks.
They worked, sort of.

Now, the hard drive only has 13.7 GB of total space instead of 250GB and a Logitech Blocker? keeps coming up every time Windows is restarted.

oh sad to hear that FemaleCS_EE.
but anyway, if everything else fail tha last resort is still to reinstall the OS.

sounds like your brother didn't delete or maybe chose not to delete the partitions primarily because it will wipe out everything. in case you have some files you dont want to lose. but "repair install" sometimes does not work. so it's not a guarantee. anyway, mind checking your computer how many partitions it has(drive C, D , etc aside from your optical drive). you might wanna check and search as well if you can see the old files you had.

if it's OK with you, then you can reinstall the OS and make sure all paritions are deleted and just install the OS in one parition. check this th site check the 6th screenshot on part1. to make sure there are no paritions using up the hdd space delete all partitions listed. there should be an "unallocated space" left. then just press enter to proceed formatting the space. just format your hdd using ntfs(quick). check out the following sites for other info:

ntfs vs fat
Differences between a Quick format and a regular format during a "clean" installation of Windows XP

hopefully everything will be ok after reinstalling the OS and the drivers.

best of luck
~silverphoenix~

Sounds like his Recovery disks were XP SP0 then. Applying SP1, or 2 will allow Windows to use the LBA 48-bit addressing and see past the limit of 137GB (I know of no limiting issue at 13.7GB)

Tallon41

This post has been edited by Tallon41: Oct 6 2008, 03:36 PM