XP Is Missing Files Or Corrupt..How To Repair?

[sjaguar13]

I had problems with my hard drive. It was reading it as 2gb not 10gb. I got it figured out, but now XP won't boot up. It says I'm missing a file or it's corrupt, \windows\system32\config\system. I put my XP CD in and boot. I hit R for repair and I go into DOS...how do I repair it? Is the file I need somewhere on the CD?

[Redo40]

Try this step by step and see if it helps.

[sjaguar13]

I hit enter, agree to the "End User Agreement", but I don't get a list of installs. I get a list of partitions. It's back to being 2gb and not 10gb. Should I format everything, use NTFS (it's FAT right now) and start over?

[Redo40]

I don't like to recommend formating until everything else has been tried.

Does the bios see the drive correctly?

[sjaguar13]

I ran that LifeData thing from WD. It said bad drive cable. BIOS started seeing it correctly, but XP wouldn't load. XP just now seen it wrong, I haven't checked BIOS to see if it switch, but it was seeing it correctly.

[Redo40]

Check the bios and make sure that it is seeing it properly.

Did you replace the cable? or did the bios just start seeing it right?

[sjaguar13]

After it said the cable was bad, it said there was no WD drive. XP would always run a file checker thing, and it would find bad files, say null, and stop. When I installed the drive, I couldn't get it to be Primary Master, it wouldn't be found. It had to be Secondary Master. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. The computer is a day old. If I can't get it fixed by tomarrow, I'll probably just format and start over.

[Redo40]

See if this helps. Link

We need to get your hard drive sorted out also.

What cable are you using (40 or 80)?

What cable is on the Primary IDE?

How did you have the drive jumpered? when you tried setting it as master on the primary.

[Alfie]

How is the drive jumpered?
With WD drives if you're using a standard 40 wire ide ribbon and it is alone on the ribbon,remove the jumper to indicate master.
If you're using a 80 wire udma ribbon,make sure blue end is plugged into motherboard,(pin 1 to pin 1) use the black end (far end) to depict master and jumper the drive to CS(cable select).
Try this first and see if it cures the problem,if it still doesn't,boot from XP cd,let it load all things and click on install,XP will offer(should) to install or repair an existing OS,choose repair.
The first repair option is the repair console and involves specific commands,the install,repair option is done by XP cd and is easier,this repair option will leave most drivers and programs intact,but have drivers on hand,just in case.

[sjaguar13]

I used the cable with the blue end. I jumpered every way possible. I took the jumper off, I had it cable select, neutral, single master, dual master, and dual slave. Nothing worked. Now it's on a cable with a black end and set to neutral and it's working.

[Cricket]

With 80 wire UltraATA IDE cables, the blue connector goes to the motherboard, the black to the main hard drive and the grey to whatever slave device you have in there. Drives should be jumpered to CS or CSel (cable select).

Cricket