PC inaccessible - HELP!

[Silvabod]

Yesterday - Athlon XP 1800+, XPhome, 768Mb RAM, Asus A7V266E m/b, WLAN
network - all running fine
(One minor glitch - 3.5" Floppy access no longer available, tried 2 drives,
3 cables - still "error 40" and u/s. Disabled in BIOS - MONTHS ago). Fully
protected with AV, Spybot, AdAware, MSSpyware, etc etc. and defragged
regularly.

Today - "One-peep" (normal) boot, all BIOS screens seem OK, but error
"Windows could not start - .....config file missing or corrupt. Insert
system disk in CE and press "r" at this screen"

PROBLEM. BIOS recognises/correctly identifies the CD Drive, BUT (even after
selecting it as first boot device in BIOS) it WILL NOT go to XP CD to
boot/repair - just loops the entire boot sequence )any keyboard key
re-starts the boot, including "r".

Cannot get to a command prompt.

Any ideas, what next?

 

[Guest]

Is your cdrom master or slave

 

[Silvabod]

CD is Master on IDE1 (hdd is master on IDE0)

Is your cdrom master or slave

 

[GreenieLeBrun]

Yesterday - Athlon XP 1800+, XPhome, 768Mb RAM, Asus A7V266E m/b, WLAN
network - all running fine
(One minor glitch - 3.5" Floppy access no longer available, tried 2 drives,
3 cables - still "error 40" and u/s. Disabled in BIOS - MONTHS ago). Fully
protected with AV, Spybot, AdAware, MSSpyware, etc etc. and defragged
regularly.

Today - "One-peep" (normal) boot, all BIOS screens seem OK, but error
"Windows could not start - .....config file missing or corrupt. Insert
system disk in CE and press "r" at this screen"

PROBLEM. BIOS recognises/correctly identifies the CD Drive, BUT (even after
selecting it as first boot device in BIOS) it WILL NOT go to XP CD to
boot/repair - just loops the entire boot sequence )any keyboard key
re-starts the boot, including "r".

Cannot get to a command prompt.

Any ideas, what next?

Do you get the Press any key to boot from CD message just after the
computer goes through the POST routine? If so do you press a key to
boot from the CD?

These liks may help:-

How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

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

How to Troubleshoot Registry Corruption Issues
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=822705


How to Recover from a Corrupted Registry that Prevents Windows XP from
Starting
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545

 

[Silvabod]

As stated in original post - pressing any key just restarts the entire boot
cycle,.including "r" with the installation CD in the drive, as per the error
screen instruction.
No. my BIOS doen't offer "press any key to boot from CD", the nearest
equivalent is the "r" on error screen
BUT - the BIOS is currently set to boot from primary CD drive anyway (IDE1
master w/XP disk installed), which doesn;t work - hence the post.
I'm going to have to strip the pc down...
Thanks for the thoughts.