Windows cannot start because file missing or corrupt
I have a toshiba m35-s456 which i bought 9/04. Was working fine till one day “windows cannot start because file missing or corrupt.” figured hard drive failing, took it out, set it up as usb drive to transfer what data i could before it died (which is readable but slowly)… bought replacement hard drive and installed it, restoring with the original toshiba dvd. This is xp (not yet sp2, would have to get that after restore to bring it back up to speed.) seemed okay for just a few minutes and then began frequent shutdowns with blue screen of death… i assume it’s motherboard issue as this is now with new hard drive, which says it doesn’t need a separate driver itself. Am I way out of this extended warranty by now? Help. Thanks
You can get this error message because of faulty memory module. Test memory with Memtest86+. If you have two memory modules installed, remove them one by one and test the laptop with only one module in place. Try different memory configurations, for example, module 1 in slot A, module 1 in slot B, module 2 in slot A and module 2 in slot B. Find out which memory module or memory slot is causing the problem. Replace the module if needed.
If you have only one memory module, try moving it into a different slot, just in case if you have a faulty memory slot on the motherboard.
Anyways, I think it might be just a faulty memory module.
September 19th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Well, thank you very much for your diagnosis – but problem remains. I ran memtest 86+ and it appears that both slots are okay, but 1 of the two 1gb ram modules is bad. So I left in place 1gb + 256mb (this arrangement passed the memtest86+). All appeared good. Thus I took original hard drive and replaced it and attempted bootup, but same message. “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM”… tells me I can attempt to repair with setup cd-rom but I do not want to do that with this hard drive until I get all data off of it. Suggestions welcome – thank you.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Denise,
I thought you already backed up all data using external USB enclosure, didn’t you?
Try restoring OS with known good memory on the new hard drive, just to make sure there is no other problem with the laptop. If everything works fine, most likely the operating system on the old hard drive is corrupted because of the faulty memory module. You can attempt to repair Windows or reinstall it from scratch.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:29 am
Right, that was the plan. Problem is data transfer is painfully slow, which was why I originally thought first hd was failing, and thus my surprise at the new hd installation resulting in errors as I noted. With your help and diagnosis, I decided to try original hd again, as data removal would be much quicker (and life much simpler) if I could just boot up into my original hd/os, etc. Now I am stuck because data transfer is as the turtle moves, and I cannot proceed until certain that some data is recovered. Thanks.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:44 am
I have the same computer, bought it the same month/year (9/04) and am having the same problem. I can’t turn my computer on because now it says, “Windows missing”…same problem as above. My laptop didn’t come with a startup disk, so I have to find that somewhere online and purchase it. Is it even worth taking it to a place to run a diagnostic? Or should I just get a new computer?
October 11th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Holly,
You can run some hardware diagnostics at home.
As I mentioned above, use Memtest86+ for memory test and Hitachi’s drive fitness test for testing the hard drive. I think you can purchase the recovery disc directly from Toshiba. Just call the customer support line and ask if they can sell it to you, it should be expensive.
You can find both utilities in Ultimate Boot CD. I linked to this utility in Useful Links.
February 17th, 2008 at 7:15 am
my laptop wont start at all wiych means i cant run any sort of test when i turn it on the “we apologize” screen come on it says run safe mode safe mode networking safe mode comand prompt or satrt windows normally no mater what i chose or dont chose it wont start it then goes to windows and seems like its tarting but it only shows the blue screen of death and i cannot read the problem either cause it flickers away in less than a second and restarts the process again how can i get passed that to go in windows and fix what i caused i think it was some processes i un checked for the startup please help me in neeed of some sort of guidence oh and if nothing else works can i take the ahrddrive out and get the info out? plese email me at campos.city@gmail.com
June 27th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
My laptop wont start at all which means i cannot run any sort of test when i turn it on. The “we apologize” screen come on it says run safe mode, safe mode networking, safe mode comand prompt or satrt windows normally and no matter which I chose it wont start it then goes to windows and seems like its starting but it only shows the blue screen of death and says: C0000218(registry file failure)The registry cannot load the Hive(file):\systemroot\system32\config\software or its log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent or not writable. Beginning dump of physical memory. And then restarts again.It is a NEC Versa A2100 Please can you help. Thanks
August 21st, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Andy,
I have the same exact problem. My laptop is a Toshiba A205 Satellite series – about one year old. This happened just a couple of days ago. Were you able to discover the problem? How did you resolve it?
Thanks,
Brian
October 20th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Hello guys, here’s the problem. I have a Toshiba Satellite P25, with windows XP home edition on it. The DVD drive went dead about a month before the system itself crashed. When it was still working, the laptop still detected the DVD drive, however when a disc was inserted it would spin a little, then nothing would happen. Even on the BIOS boot sequence screen I can see the drive, however it has a “!” next to it.
That being said, about a month after the DVD drive went dead I went to turn the laptop one day and got this error. “windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: windows\system32\config\system”
At first when I accessed the BIOS it wouldn’t even detect the HD anymore. Yesterday I went to try again and it’s listed there again, but that’s about it.
I have the Toshiba recovery DVD, but like I said, the DVD drive is dead. This laptop doesn’t have a floppy drive (of course) and it doesn’t recognize USB as a bootable option. I now have a second laptop, so I guess my option is to do a network boot, but my new laptop has Vista on it, I don’t really know how to do it and if it will work at all. I was thinking of buying the DVD drive and replace the old one, however with no OS working on the laptop I don’t know if that will work (will I need to install any drivers at all? even if I get the exact same DVD drive model?)
Please help with this, if it’s a problem that requires two posts (due to one problem being with the OS and the other being a hardware issue) my apologies and please tell me so so I can make the other post as well. I’m technically inclined and will follow instructions as given. Thank you in advance and thanks for providing the help you give out!!
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Hi, I’m not having this exact problem, but I’m afraid I will be… I have a Toshiba Satellite A305 that I bought in July and the DVD/CD drive is not being detected by my computer. I know it works, because I’m still able to play games that require the cd, but I cannot burn cds or watch dvds
I have no help to offer, I’m going to take it in next week (thankfully I bought a protection plan), and will return with any help I deem useful to your situations.
November 23rd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Me again- Huzzah! It’s fixed! In my case it was a software issue, and I called Toshiba and they were able to talk me thru what to do.
1) go to http://support.toshiba.com
Once the DOS prompt pops up, you’ll have to “press any key” to start and “press any key” to exit
2) Where the search box is, click ‘Express View’
3) Type in this ID “98080671” and change the drop down menu to “Support Bulletin”
4) Click the search button!
5) “CD / DVD drive missing from ‘My Computer’ (Windows Explorer)” should pop up
6) *note if this will work with your Toshiba model* Follow on-screen directions to download “Toshiba Upper/Lower Limit Repair Tool (RmvFltrs.exe).”
7) After saving, unzip, and run! (it’ll look like the old DOS prompt)
9) Restart laptop
10) Check ‘My Computer’ – hallelujah ! it’s there!
If it’s not there after this, then the tech guy told me that it was a hardware issue, and I’d have to bring it in.
Hope this helps!!
January 27th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Hi there–Similiar to everyone else, I am having the problem where my computer won’t start and it says—the windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: windows\system32\config\system”. I have a ThinkPad T60 computer and I am currently studying abroad in a different country away from home and I do not have the origincal CD rom for Windows…Is there any way I can get this fixed or solve it without the cd rom? Please write back if you can, it’d be much appreciated! Thank you!!
January 27th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Kenzie Murray,
Usually on ThinkPad laptops you can repair or reinstall window from the hidden recovery partition. Turn on the laptop and when the laptop starts and logo appears on the screen, press on the blue Access IBM button to activate the recovery wizard. First, try repairing Windows. If it doesn’t help, reimage the hard drive back to factory defaults.
September 10th, 2009 at 6:49 am
I am a Music Artist, and was just on Google tryna find some answers real quick…
I have a laptop, and I kno something was wrong with tha System32 file or whatever, stil no problems…
Then as I was working on something in the studio one day, my entire desktop disapeared….including the taskbar, and the Right click option doesn’t work…BUT THE WALLPAPER IS STILL THERE…AND I CAN SEE MY MOUSE…
I’m still in the What The F*** mode…But if you can help me out, and send the answer to juwols@delorean.net (’cause I’m on the go) It would be greatly apprecieated…
ps. It does this even when I restart tha thing…all I see is Background img and mouse. No icons, folders, start menu, or taskbar…
February 16th, 2010 at 12:14 am
The things above sound a LOT like what happened to me. Only with mine it happened right after I left Windows do an Automatic Update on my laptop. I have a Gateway, don’t know the model. Bought it already set up with no disks at one of those discount shows that comes around once a year (You know with the designer clothes and perfumes and sunglasses and all at flea market prices?) It has worked great for about 2 years or so now with no problems. It has XP loaded on it.
It did it’s updates then restarted automatically then acted as if it would come up and then stop. Tried starting in Safe Mode. Tried starting from last known good version. Nothing worked. SO I bit the bullet, put in the XP Home Edition Udgrade disk I bought and of course it reformatted my entire harddrive and wiped out all my files.
BUT…the worst part and what I can’t get around is that now it doesn’t recognize any of my internal hardware (Wifi modem, speakers, sound card, video card, etc…) I can’t even do the update thing on the Windows website. My monitor will only show either 800×600 or 1024×768 pixels, and 16 or 32 bit color where before I had a LOT more options.
I can use my Cricket wireless broadband modem. I can use Firefox, Yahoo IM, SimpleMu, IE, and some other basic programs but I cannot use my MSN messenger, I can’t play a lot of the games I used to be able to. I can’t burn disks.
Anyone know how I can find out what hardware I have in here without taking it apart and how I can get it to work like it used to?