i seem to be having the same problem with my computer. At first everything worked fine but then one day my computer shutdown when i restarted it it would'nt load. it would stop at teh loading screen and say i had a missing or currupt system32 file and should use my windows set CD to repair it. I tried to do that, but it did'nt work. When i put in the setup CD and it started loading it'd stop at "loading kernel debugger" and say the "setupdd" file could not be loaded. I've tried reseting my BIos options, i've tried different CD rom drives, i've tried different Hard drives and teh samething happends. i even bought a new hard drive and nothing changed, i still get the error. i dont know what else to do. i have a MSI KT333 motherboard and i'm no sure if i can flash teh BIOs from a Floppy. the site said i should'nt try it, so i'm not really sure what to do.

any help would be greatly appreciated

Try this link...
http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/61162.html

Maybe this:

ERRORS:
missing or corrupt : \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM, or
missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE, or
Stop: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}

How to Recover from a Corrupted Registry that Prevents Windows XP from Starting

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545

Have u tried a different XP disk ?

Sounds like a faulty/dirty disk to me !!

I tried several windows XP disks and i tried the advice in the prevoious threads. The problem is i cant even reformat my HD because eth windows XP CD wont load. as soon as it starts loading "kernel debugger" i get teh error saying "setupdd" could not be loaded and i have a error 7.

Look your problem is quite strange and I'm not very expert But i'll try to help you according to what you described in your problem in a logical way

first you said that the computer gives you a message telling you a corrupted system 32 file this may happen for several reasons

first: your hard drive have a real corrupted file system and you can solve it by fdisk.exe this you can find it from any bootable floppy I recommend get a boot disk from older version especially windows me coz it supports fat32

Then make the computer to boot from A: not CD drive

After that install the windows Xp from the ms-dos enviroment if it didn't work install an older windows (even if you copied it from somebody) then upgrade it by the XP to prevent you from booting from the Xp disk

Second: there are a corruption in the processor or BIOS software that makes it cannot understand the file system in the hardrives or any data from any removable drive (like CD drives)

The processor: a hardware problem you must change it (don't worry this kind of problems is so rare to happen)

The BIOS(the probable): Because of a virus may cause such a thing you must re flash it so try to download it from the internet or get it from any computer company

Please try every step and send me you have any questions

bye.. good luck!

i figured out what it was. one of my ram stick are bad. i had 2 sticks of crucial 256MB drr, is there a way i can send the currupt one back? i originally bought them both from newegg.com(everythign i've bought from this place to build my my PC has broken over the last year. i will never shop there again). but anyways is there a way to get my ram replaced by crucial?