Xp Load error

[skierhughes]

I hav a pc that needed a new hard drive. Fitted it. Loaded xp from recovery discs, and on start up I get the following error message,
WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
This file is either corrupt or missing.
I have searched the M\S website and found this work around,
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545
Unfortunately it did not work, not recognising one of the files about 1/2 way through.
I have checked the memory, swapping it for another piece, checked all connections, the hard drive is a different size, so I partioned it so it was the same size as the old one.
Nothing would work.
I took the hdd out of another pc and tried in the non working one, this one would boot up.
I put the non working hdd in the other pc and this would boot up.

It just will not boot up in the pc it is meant to be in. It has to go in this one as it is my brother in laws, and rather larger than the working one, or I would swap them.

The files are obviously not corrupt or missing, something is just throwing a wobbly on start up and I'm lost.

Any Ideas?????

Graham

 

[Guest]

Did you try swapping out the cables to be sure it's not a bad cable?

_________________________
Your arrogance is boring!

 

[skierhughes]

Yep. I've had the ide cables out and swapped with my known working one, but using the old cable my hdd will work in his pc, anyway.
The hdd which will not load windows shows up correctly in bios.
I just can't understand why it will load perfectly in my pc and not in his. The pc must be ok as my hdd will load in his properly.
The new hard drive is a maxtor, as is mine, but mine is smaller, 30gb against 80gb. It's a gigabyte ga8siml m\b, takes pc2100ddr memory, got 256 mb, celeron 1.7 processor. Made by packard bell.
I've had a look at the manufacturers sites and can't find any reporrted conflicts\problems.
It's driving me insane.
Graham

 

[smith]

Have you tried to do a fresh install on the new hd?

 

[skierhughes]

I've done about 20. I've done it with the recovery discs supplied with the pc, I've done it with my xp home disc and my xp professional disc. I've installed from his pc and from mine. I've low level formatted between installs, then formatted in ntfs and fat32, all with no difference. All are exactly the same, work on my pc and not his.

 

[smith]

do you still have your old hd (with an xp install), if so, try to copy the system file from that install to your new hd. a similar problem with this solution is discussed in
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/WinXP/Q_20663809.html

 

[skierhughes]

I'll have a read.
I have tried the M\S work through as listed in my post above and it didn't work. The old HDD is defunct. I've tried to use drive image, I imaged my drive, which works on my hdd, to his and it started on mine and again didn't on his.
My son bought a few second hand hdd's from a computer fair, I'm going to pick these up and try them, as he has 20/40/80gb models to see if I can get any other to work on it.
Cheers, keep the ideas coming..........
Graham

Had a read of that article, but he's not sorted either. I have found several links to problems the same as this, but they don't appear to be getting anywhere.

Graham

 

[smith]

ive done some google searching and this appears to be a very common problem with no real fix. the problem is caused by hardware and the only real fix is replacing the motherboard. (maybe you could try to use other ide channels or setting the drive to slave instead of master.. as last resorts)

btw, have you already tried installing another os like win98?

anyways,
goodluck

 

[skierhughes]

Tried swapping ide channel, no good.
Cheers
Graham

 

[goblinking]

Is this when you install from the CD, or is it when you install the service pack?

I had corruptions with my H: drive partition info, which was being used to extract the service pack to (it automatically uses the largest partition available). It caused these very error messages.

You might want to try deleting all partitions on your hard drive and recreating them from scratch. That worked for me.

 

[skierhughes]

Thanks for the info, but it is when I install from the cd. I have tried with no partitions, 40/40gb, 30/25/25gb always the same. If I then put the hdd in my pc it works fine, in any of the above combinations, not in it's own.
Graham

 

[skierhughes]

Thanks for all the input. I have partially solved the problem. Pinched an 9gb disc out of an old pc and put it in as master, loaded xp to it and it works fine, left his new hdd in as slave, which is recognised fine.
It has got to be some sort of incompatibilty with the size of the disc and the motherboard/bios. As a 30gb works and a 9gb works but the 80gb doesn't. Cannot find anything from gigabyte or packard bell saying there is a problem like this. If I hadn't spent so much time already I would grab a few more discs of various sizes and see what happened.

Graham

 

[Zoron]

If you can update the BIOS, give it a try. 37GB is another limit that had to be overcome.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>