W2K does not boot:: corrupt or missing WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM 2

[46072]

Hello everybody, I write here hoping somebody can help me solving a serious trouble I'm into with a new PC installation. System is composed as follows:
AMD Athlon K7 1,4Ghz FSB266 (not Athlon XP, the series AMD made before issuing XP!!)
Epox EP8K7A mobo
512 MB DDR RAM (Samsung)
Quantum Fireball AS 40GB UATA100
Pioneer EIDE DVD ROM 105SZ
Waitec Saurus EIDE CD-recorder
Hercules 3D Prophet II KyroII 64MB video card
Operating system is Win2k.
Everything runs fine installing operating system, VIA 4in1 4.35, video and audio drivers, SP2...then....after one week of shutdowns/restarts the fatal error: Windows2000 cannot start as the following file is missing or corrupt: WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM. And that's all.
MS article on the knowledgebase states that this issue can have two origins: the system hive being bigger than 23 MB or many DNS zones. I checked dimensions of the system hive in the \CONFIG directory (the hive identified as corrupt or missing) and it's normal: 2,5 megs.And the PC is not part of a network. So I started thinking of a hardware problem, or some disk controller incompatibility....the system ran stable for a week running all sorts of applications...scanning, printing, CD-Recording, performing all kinds of tests...no errors, nothing signalled on event viewers, no strange behaviors. The only thing I noticed is that the PC shuts down very very quickly, sometimes you don't even have the time to see the small window 'Windows is shutting down' and power is already down. I saw another thread on this forum where the error was different (STOP C0000218 due to loading of fragmented registry hives unsuccessful) but the 'victims' of this error claimed it had something to do with shutdown too fast. While putting up my system again the setup program kept telling me there was something wrong on the HD,no damaged clusters, just something that had been lost.I wonder if this is the case for system shutting down so fast that the system hive cannot be realigned correctly....please can someone help me? This problem's driving me nuts!!!! (excuse my poor english, I'm from Italy...)

 

[sch911]

Are you getting the Stop Error C0000218 when this happens?

Read this thread: thread616-86626

 

[46072]

Nope, no STOP C00000218 in my case. Just black screen when booting and, if you choose safe mode before starting, it just says it can't start because \WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM. That's all. Anyway I'll go read the thread you suggested. Thanx for the moment!!

 

[orhiker]

I had something very similar happen on my 2KPro PC, which I fixed by literally replaced the \WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM file. It isn't human-readable, and I don't know what it does, frankly, but it was the file preventing me from booting.

To make working on these BSOD and can't-boot problems easier to fix, I've literally loaded an additional copy of 2KPro in another subdirectory, and load almost no software to keep that installation clean. That way I can boot, have search & copy capabilities, etc. and get to all my data stored on NTFS volumes. It also gives me additional copies of system files uncompressed and in their correct subdirectory. This makes OS repairs *much* easier.

I saved the "bad" system file, tried replacing it with the SYSTEM.ALT file in the same subdir, but this didn't work. It *did* work when I took the SYSTEM file from my working copy of the new installation, despite their very large difference in size. So far (only did 36 hours ago), every program runs, but a few programs when give a short "I'm installing now" message when I start them, but only the first time. Since I don't know all the functions of the SYSTEM file, there may be ramifications of what I've done. However, I'm up & working, apparently w/all my programs functional and plenty of clean reboots.

Orhiker

 

[pbxman]

I'd just like to point out that an error such as this indicates a serious corruption in the registry, and fixing/repairing that is not worth the trouble.

Whoever had this PC has done some serious software installations i bet - use this opportunity to rebuild the PC. Don't put a band-aid on it by repairing the registry, and fixing all these corrupt files - youd have to reinstall your user apps anyways.

A buggy OS foundation is going to end up biting ya in the behind. An error in the "brains" of the OS such as this should set a red flag telling you there's a serious issue here, and a solid, fresh install of 2K is neccessary.

Use the repair options if you need to recover data - after you get the data you need backed-up..reinstall 2K.

..just my previous registry nightmares turned into experience, folks....It only takes an hour or so to reinstall the entire OS! Compare that to the time it takes to "hopefully" repair a weak registry..

Hope this helps shed some light on the issue..
Pbxman
Systems Administrator

Please let Tek-Tips members know their posts were helpful.

 

[Beany2]

pbxman

If you read the link above you may find the OS is at fault.
M$ has very kindly introduced a problem where the write cache in fast HD's are not being written to the physical disk, hence data is lost. The registry normally gets hit because this is the last thing wrtitten to the disk when a system is shuts down!

Strange M$ did not noticed this then they were beta testing the last service pack? BTW there is a hotfix for the problem just contact M$ for the patch and password!

 

[AVGuyFromChi]

I have a similar situation in terms of the WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM file that can't be found because it's either missing or is corrupt and not letting the PC boot up. I also had to previously fix the NTLDR file as well, and also tried to repair the file with the Win2K install disk, to no avail. Anyway, I have an IBM ThinkPad A31P laptop running Win2KPro at 512K of RAM (with a Novell login at startup), and I cannot get to my hard drive files now because I get stopped by the PC saying this when it gets to the white line in startup mode; before I can hit F8, this message comes up. What else can I do to get the machine to reboot before I just go ahead and reinstall Win2K, i.e. lose all files that are currently on the PC? Keep in mind that I don't have a rescue recovery disk, and that I have "My Documents" saved, as well as my Outlook e-mail files and Groupwise-to-Outlook archives from our recent migration to to the Outlook 2003 version. The IT guy at my job is basically blowing me off, and I need to get this thing going again soon. Any help you guys could lend would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bcastner]

Windows 2000 Registry Repair Utility

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...01-2c68-4de8-9229-ca494362419c&displaylang=en

 

[bcastner]

While I am at it, add the registry/hive service if you are concerned about shutdown not properly saving the necessary files:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

 

[AVGuyFromChi]

bcastner: is there a link that I can use to fix a Win2K SP4 system? The web site says that this fix is compatible up to SP3. Will that matter at all? Pls. advise.

 

[bcastner]

AVGuyFromChi,

Should not matter. Essentially the repair tool runs the XP version of Recovery Console with some additional features.

Underlying all of this is this MS KB article written for the XP context (as it has a system restore feature):

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q307545