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Bad hard drive,

rogar6

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Posted July 28, 2011 at 7:20PM

Got this message when turning on my computer: "windows failed to start" "System registry file is corrupt, missing" My steps so far: removed bad hard drive
extracted important files with retrievemyfiles software to an old computer

Now I'm wondering what my next step should be.

Can I just buy a new hard drive, install it to the original computer, reload my files and be all set? Any chance it will be that simple? Or will I need to download another version of Vista?

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Kevscar1

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Posted July 29, 2011 at 8:15AM

Just re-install Vista from the disk. You will need tore-register it.

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bremner

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Posted July 30, 2011 at 3:35PM

rogar6

The error message is software [Windows Registry] related what makes you think you have a bad hard drive?

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rogar6

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Posted July 30, 2011 at 9:48PM

I was able to run a scan of the various drives and various parts of the computer and everything looked good except for an error in the HD. I even had an option of going back to a previous configuration date but was always brought back to the same screen that said: "windows failed to start" file/windows/system32/config/system system registry file is missing, corrupt

The computer was running very slow a day after I downloaded some software, which I think started this whole mess.

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bremner

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Posted July 31, 2011 at 8:11AM

Have a read through this Microsoft Support

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