I tried the repair route it says system is not a directory. Tried Bart's
renaming to old. Won't let me rename it saying file is corrupt, yet I see it
as a 4 MB file under that directory. Tried Bart PE and tried renaming it,
deleting it copying it and it always fails saying the files corrupt. I tried
copying the repair file to that directory and it won't let me overwrite or
delete that old system file no matter what. I even enabled overwrite and
hidden files. There was no system.alt file. I tried doing a repair install
and it doesn't find Windows since it wants to do a fresh install. I need
major help. The hard drive looks ok, I see all the files and directories.
Please any professional advice. Thanks in advance.
--
In the quest for knowledge.

"Rick" wrote

>I tried the repair route it says system is not a directory. Tried Bart's
> renaming to old. Won't let me rename it saying file is corrupt, yet I see
> it
> as a 4 MB file under that directory. Tried Bart PE and tried renaming it,
> deleting it copying it and it always fails saying the files corrupt. I
> tried
> copying the repair file to that directory and it won't let me overwrite or
> delete that old system file no matter what. I even enabled overwrite and
> hidden files. There was no system.alt file. I tried doing a repair
> install
> and it doesn't find Windows since it wants to do a fresh install. I need
> major help. The hard drive looks ok, I see all the files and directories.

Install the drive in another XP or Win2k computer and copy the important
data files, or copy the data files to CD or a flash drive after booting from
the Bart's PE disk, then do a clean install of XP.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

--
Rock [MVP - User/Shell]

Rick wrote:
> I tried the repair route it says system is not a directory. Tried Bart's
> renaming to old. Won't let me rename it saying file is corrupt, yet I see it
> as a 4 MB file under that directory. Tried Bart PE and tried renaming it,
> deleting it copying it and it always fails saying the files corrupt. I tried
> copying the repair file to that directory and it won't let me overwrite or
> delete that old system file no matter what. I even enabled overwrite and
> hidden files. There was no system.alt file. I tried doing a repair install
> and it doesn't find Windows since it wants to do a fresh install. I need
> major help. The hard drive looks ok, I see all the files and directories.
> Please any professional advice. Thanks in advance.


How to Recover from a Corrupted Registry that Prevents Windows XP from
Starting
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;307545

Once you've recovered, you might want to look here, as well:

How to Troubleshoot Registry Corruption Issues
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;822705


--

Bruce Chambers

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