Corrupt file won't boot WINXP. Help!!

[Solosmooth]

I thought winxp was suppose to be the most reliable OS ever. Well I have this problem.

I was overclocking my AMD XP 1800
to an AMD XP 2000
My fsb was 133 multiplier was 13
Voltage 1.85
had it running fine @1667mhz.
turbo Mode

Then I decided to mess around with the fsb
Raised the fsb to 150
my multiplier was on 10
Raised the memory voltage to 2.70v
Turbo mode

System seemed unstable so I rebooted
and now windows doesn't even load.
I'm running 8khi2205 bios.

When I'm trying to boot winxp i get this message:

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

you can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup.

I was wondering if anyone one can help me with this problem.
I ran windows xp setup and hit R for repair but after that I have no clue what to do.
I've tried to run some commands CHKDSK,BOOTCFG,FIXBOOT but non helped.
I was wondering if there's an easy way to reinstall this file.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Or else I'm gonna have to reinstall.
Thanks.

That's what I get for messing around with my fsb on my epox 8kha+

These are my specs
AMD XP 1800
Epox 8kha+
512 mb ddr sdram
ATI ALL IN WONDER RADEON
Santa Cruz
Antec pp403x 400watt power supply.

[akaBruno]

boot into DOS and type scanreg....

but, it almost sounds like an invitation to format and reload.

Maybe someone else can suggest something else. But, when all else fails...

[Pinky]

Sounds to me like data corruption from the overclocked harddrive?? Bruno hit the nail on the head... I keep a ghost image of my primary partition at all times. I'd hate to have to start over all the time with all the drivers and tweaking I do

[Aedan]

Smacks a bit of registry corruption if you ask me...

The file %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is actually a major part of your registry. If you can get to a command line, it might be possible to copy %SYSTEMROOT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM.SAV to %SYSTEMROOT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM, and the system may reboot, but you will loose all system specific settings, like all hardware stuff.

There may also be a file called "SYSTEM.ALT" in the same place. If so, this would be a better bet to copy to SYSTEM.

If neither of these work, and you don't have an RDISK you can use, then you have no choice but to re-install. There's no other way I know of that you can use to practically rebuild the entire registry with.

AidanII

[Solosmooth]

I decided to reinstall. I definetly learned my lesson and will not try to mess with my fsb.
I'm happy running my xp @1667.
I'm lucky enough to backup all my data on cdrs or else I would be pulling out my hair in disgust.

Thank You Guys.

[akaBruno]

Oh, don't give up. This is just half the fun. Plus, it'll teach ya to keep your progs on other partitions than C:

It's no biggie...I do it all the time. It's a great way to learn.

Bruno

[Pinky]

And maybe teach "Ghost" too

[Aedan]

Originally posted by akaBruno
Oh, don't give up. This is just half the fun. Plus, it'll teach ya to keep your progs on other partitions than C:

Hey, I'll let you fix my machine without a re-install when I next delete all my registry. Not sure how storing programs on other partitions than C would make any difference when you've lost the registry?

AidanII

[Solosmooth]

I have norton ghost but I have no clue how to use it?
I also have Goback but I find that it takes quite a bit of my hardrive space and it causes my drive to be active constantly which slows things down.

[akaBruno]

Hey, Aidan:

That's why you back up your registry.

BTW, what's the name of these forums?

[Pinky]

Originally posted by akaBruno

BTW, what's the name of these forums?

[mouthful]

Alliance for the Overclocking Arts

[/mouthful]

[Cyberey66]

I had that quite a few times on my old unstable system. When ever I got that error I would boot up command consol and quickly do a "chkdsk /f /r". Sometimes it worked other times it didn't. I also just backed up that whole folder from command consol too. Backing up is worth it. For a while I always had a dual boot setup just so if one OS wasn't working, I would use the other while I fix the broken one. Thanks to XP no more dually.

I too have ghost but I don't use it. I should just hook up my tape drive someday, it's only a 4giger, but it still works. Can ghost work with a scsi tape drive?

[Holst]

I uploaded a usefull program called "memory stuff" to AOAfiles.

In the zip there is a program called memtest that runs from a DOS boot disk.

Then you can test your memory stability from DOS without risking your HDD, ive often found that an overclock is unstable without ever booting into windows, and never risking corruption.

I also run ghost before I do any daft overclocking to be extra sure.