My ancient desktop computer has packed up (I’m getting the following message: “Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM” and I can’t find the Windows CD).
Since that time, my wireless router has also been acting oddly, dropping the internet connection on a regular basis. Unplugging the power lead and plugging it back in fixes it for a short time so that I can access the internet via a laptop, but then it drops again. And my iPhone now seems to be unable to access the internet at all, despite showing the three-semicircle symbol meaning it is connected to WiFi.
Are these two things related? The wireless router is plugged into the desktop PC (which doesn’t have a wireless card) but it always worked fine for the laptop and iPhone when that PC was switched off. Wireless routers don’t need to be connected to a functioning PC, do they?
Also, is there anywhere I can legally get or make a Windows XP CD?
No one really knows if the two things are related.
There could have, theoretically, been a power surge that messed up your PC and the router, or it could be coincidence.
I’d be more inclined to believe that it was a power surge if the PC problem wasn’t your hard drive failing to find a given file, though.
With a power surge, the power supply having popped would make sense, or the HDD not powering up at all, etc… power surges don’t usually just wipe out a few sectors and leave everything else in the PC fine and dandy.
As to getting the XP CD, I’m not certain of any legal options. If I didn’t count a dozen local computer technicians among my close friends, I’d consider running a Craigslist ad. Somebody may be willing to part with their old XP CD for a couple of bucks, given that many XP systems are now trash to begin with.
On the XP CD, it might be fine to ask someone else for one, but ideally you will know your installation key, know what edition (Home or Professional), and know if it’s a retail, OEM, Royalty OEM, or Volume License version. If you know those details, you could download a CD image, edit the details to make it the right version and burn it to disc. If you only know the key, you could get an incorrect CD and find out that it doesn’t install with your key.
For what it’s worth, I had a wireless router go “hard broke” (component failure?), so the cheaper models do sometimes just wear out. The guy at the computer store guessed the model I had when I mentioned my problem, so it’s common enough among certain brands to be a trend, it seems.
I think it was a Linksys, but can’t be certain. Upgraded to a different brand and haven’t had a problem.
Mine is a Linksys. It’s odd that my iPhone has no internet access at all through it, even when the laptop does. (I’ve tried “forgetting” the network and reconnecting but still no joy.)
I had that problem with a Linksys and iPhone combo, as well as one of the three laptops in the house. I found that assigning them a fixed IP address chosen randomly from the allowable IPs of the router’s DHCP range, as well as Google DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), allowed both clients to access the intarwebs.
I don’t see any way that your computer’s problem could be related to the router’s problem other than some coincidental conditions that screwed up both, as Mr. Slant pointed out. Honestly, though, I think that’s pretty unlikely.
When a previously well-functioning WiFi network suddenly develops lots of disconnect issues, the underlying problem is often environmental. Try changing the router’s antenna configuration. The best “general tuning” for the antennas is to put them at right angles to one another. Also (if that doesn’t help on its own) try changing your WiFi channel. This can make a big difference in connectivity if you’ve got a noisy channel for one reason or another.
As far as the rest of your problem goes…
That file is the backing for the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System registry hive. Lots of hardware enumeration and configuration data goes there. The boot loader panics if it thinks it is corrupted.
If you have done a “System Settings” backup recently (say, less than a week old) your best option is probably to restore from the backup. Otherwise – no backup or old backup – you are probably better off trying to repair the “corrupted” hive by simply mounting and unmounting it in regedit (yank the drive, put it in another computer). I say “corrupted” because most of the time this is a minor problem caused by an unexpected shutdown rather than a major problem caused by actual disk errors. It’s just that the Windows boot loader is too dumb to figure out how to do even simple registry repairs. If the checksum fails, it just throws its arms up and kernel panics.
The reason it might be preferable to a repair even if you have a slightly-but-not-terribly old backup (say 1 month) is that restoring old hives can have some weird consequences. This is mostly an issue for the SOFTWARE hive. Old SOFTWARE data can lead to Windows Installer being out of sync with reality (it isn’t aware that things you’ve installed recently are actually installed), which can not only lead to some weird behavior, but even pose an outright security threat. That is, if Windows Installer doesn’t know that Office 2010 was installed 3 days ago, guess what isn’t getting patched by Windows Update?