ibm laptop,started with message windows can not start\winnt\system32\\config\systemced missing or corrupt,try reparing from windows cd. tried that,cannot get past original message.made boot up disks,changed boot up sequence both cd and floppy.cannot get to a:prompt.does not get by original messsage can get into setup. any suggestions would be appreciated,thanks

dont know if it will help but have you tried booting with a win2k ERD (emergency repair disk) if you dont have one you can try making and using one from a different comp that might work. good luck

It sounds like part of your registry is missing or corrupted. Have you tried using Last Known Good Configuration or Safe Mode options at startup? These can be accessed by pressing F8 when Windows 2000 starts booting (ie the white progress bar on black screen appears). Last Known Good should restore your last working registry. If L.K.G doesn't work, then it just restores settings from the same file. If you make the Windows 2000 Setup Boot Disks, you won't get the A: prompt because Windows 2000 is a proper operating system and so doesn't have a DOS kernel. Instead it has the Windows 2000 kernel and basic drivers required to install your system. There are four of these disks to a set. If you mean the boot disk that you make by re-formatting and copying NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI to it, this will just bypass ugin the copies on your hard disk, and will still try to boot your Windows 2000 partition as the HDD config would. DOS-based boot disks will not help as Windows 2000 doesn't use DOS or any of its components. Also, as your HDD will probably be NTFS, a DOS boot disk would probably not read the HDD anyway. IF Caseyl123 means the ERD made in the Windows 2000 Backup program, his ERD suggestion probably won't work because the ERD contains information specific to your particular system. You will need a disk made in your computer, and a fairly up-to-date one at that. Also, this disk is not bootable, so you'll still need to boot from the Win2000 CD or floppies, and choose R (for Repair) then R (for automated repair utility) after the setup program boots. If you have the correct ERD, then choose the ERD option, otherwise there's a standard repair routine that repairs file systems, boot sectors and damaged registry hives. Note that, in my experience, this utility has to be run twice, rebooting in between because the first time only the filesystems are checked. If it comes to it, re-format your hard disk for a clean Win2000 install, install all your apps and then fish out that data backup that you update religiously on a regular basis :).