I'm experiencing intermittent problems with this error. windows does not start properly. here is whats happening regularly: 1.power on, light comes on the pc but monitor remains black. 2.press restart, monitor comes on, but says out of range (and nothing else) 3.press restart, starts to load, gets past the screen where it gives you F8 options etc and then says system32\config\system corrupt or missing 4.press restart, sometimes will boot ok and go into windows *no problem. other times will just keep coming back to the system32\config\system screen after numerous restarts, i go into recovery console, and do the ren system system.old stuff and it then allows me to get back in to windows. however, the following day, the process starts again from step 1. i have tried the following: a. formatting drive and reinstalling windows many times. it used to last about 8 months before this glitch came back, now it lasts about a week after reinstalling b. instructions on the microsoft website to cure this issue c. most of the recovery console suggested stuff i can find. could this be linked to bad hardware (ram or hard disk? is a virus? bad program that i install? windows os itself? please help, i'm about to chuck the computer through a window Tony Palminteri www.ppsdigital.com

System32 Folder Opens When Logging on to Windows XP, Windows 2000, or Windows NT 4.0 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q170086 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q170/0/86.asp&NoWebContent=1 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1404130,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1401312,00.asp

It sounds like disk corruption. Try reinstalling the Os on a new disk. You could also first try running check disk with the option to automatically fix them.

Thanks for your support Johnw- this is not quite the right thing, as the problem occurs before windows loads (black screen) chrismr- i have tried running check disk, and no joy. i only have one disk drive (c:) on my pc. do you think if i had the hard disk replaced for a new one it may solve the problem? Tony Palminteri www.ppsdigital.com

"do you think if i had the hard disk replaced for a new one it may solve the problem?" Doubt it. Black Screen on Boot http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314503 http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q294/4/27.asp http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;q314503 http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q162/0/31.asp http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_b.htm http://www.sysopt.com/articles/troubleshoot/index.html

its worth a try to swap the harddrive