PC won't bootup

[d_o_thomas]

Afternoon
My kids recently inherented their grandad's old pc and since last week we haven't been able to start it up. We get a message saying: Windows 2000 could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM\
It then gives the option to repair using a disc (which we don't have) and selecting repair. Can anyone help?

Cheers
Dot

[PhilH]

First visit this site http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm to get a boot disk for win2k then visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306038/en-us and follow this through. See if this helps

[d_o_thomas]

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I've decided to use this as a project as we've bought a new one. The ROM drive isn't working so i've been trying to make boot floppies. The trouble is whenever i try to copy over the file i keep getting a popup saying the file is too large to fit on the floppy. I'm using 1.44MB formatted double sided high density disks. When i checked the properties of the disk it says the size is 1.38MB. The size of the file is 1.40MB. I'm a little confused as to why the new disk says 1.44MB when i can only use 1.38MB. Can you please advise. It's not urgent but i wouldn't mind fixing it. Many thanks.
D

[PhilH]

The actual size of the disk is not the same as what is available to use, there is some reason for it, to do with block sizes and reserved areas and other bumf like that If you want to create a boot disk you can either goto http://www.bootdisk.com/ they have a number of boot floppy images, or on any windows machine (except windows 2000) you can right click on the floppy and select format, in there is an option to create a startup disk. You cant create a boot floppy by just copying the files over to the disk.

[d_o_thomas]

Really sorry mate, can't make sense of it. I did the format of the floppy and managed to get to a dos screen on the win2k machine with the A:\ but stuck there.
Also downloadedthe 'makeboot.exe' file but when it asked to specify the floppy drive to copy the images to anything i do makes the screen disappear. Followed the instructions from the link and also no good.
Maybe i'm being really thick so can you really break it down for me.
Thanks for your patience.
D

[d_o_thomas]

Update. Managed to get some disks done from another site that was a bit more straight forward and was able to download straight to disk. Got pc up and running. Only problem is the graphics are now only giving me i6 colours when it was originally 32 and i can't connect to the internet.
Still at least i have a working pc now and i'm sure i'll sort the rest out eventually. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction phil.
D [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]