Missing or Corrupt config/system file?

[Guest]

Our 2nd family computer, which is a year old and is a Dell 8400 with XP,
won't turn on. Actually, it turns on a comes up with a message like this one:

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

According to: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545
We're supposed to put our XP Startup disk in, but when we do that, nothing
happens. We've tried restarting and we used the disk to this computer, but
no luck. Can anybody offer us some advice?

 

[Guest]

If it is a year old, it must have worked before. How did you screw it up?
Your WindowsXP installation disk is also a bootable disk, use it? Try in
Safe Mode.
"How to Boot in Safe Mode"
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/capture/safemode.html

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

 

[Guest]

We were trying to burn a some pictures onto a CD. The first try didn't work,
so we put a new disc in and hit burn and then it shut down on us.

I tried putting it in boot mode, but no luck. It loaded about 4 different
files and the 5th one was the windows/system32/config/system file. It would
stop and then the same error message loaded and I was back to square one.