My interest in buying a new PC started about 6 months ago. I'd been getting frequent error messages on startup, telling me that my \windows\system32\config\system file was missing or corrupt. Nobody, including MS themselves, could explain why, although I was offered a variety of "solutions". Some were a little more useful than others, but none really solved the problem. If I was lucky, I'd be able to get Windows going well enough to save a few documents before the thing would collapse completely. So, I'd be stuck re-installing XP (and everything else) from scratch, and dowloading all the updates all over again. Replacing the hard-drive (since Windows told me my old one was damaged) didn't solve the problem for long - the same messages would rear their ugly little heads again soon after. I decided to try another trick of my own. I went into regedit and exported my registry files to My Documents; my theory being that there'd be a backup copy on my drive in case the original became corrupted again. I'm assuming that Windows would look for the missing file elsewhere, if it wasn't where it belonged. I did that about three weeks ago, and the thing's been working very well since. My question to you tech-savvy types is: Did I actually do something worthwhile, or has my good fortune been merely coincidental? I'd appreciate any advice. If nothing else, it'll help me decide how much of my time I should spend computer shopping.

There should not be anything wrong with the hard drive. You can go online to find the routine that will scandisk your hard drive. Before that, you should run defrag. If this does not help with your problem, it looks like a full reinsall of windows. If you do this, use the clean install by reformating your hard drive. Make sure you back up your documents. If you do not have one already, instal a second hard drive as a back up. You can do this in safemode. You do not need to get a new computer unless you want one. A new computer will most likely have Vista on it.

You may also try to boot from the XP CD ROM and tell it to install. Skip the repair part. Let it detect Windows existing, and THEN tell it repair. Worked for me.

Thanks for the advice. I've tried the repair from the original Windows CD. That worked once, but it was damn shaky until I downloaded a bunch of Windows updates. Also, my Restore Points were gone, which makes me wonder what good they are. :-\

Other crashes were so bad that a repair wouldn't take; I had to start from scratch. Of course, the damn thing never gives any warning when it's going to go - it just won't start up, in safe mode or otherwise.

Also, I clean, defrag, and check my hard drive pretty regularly. Keeps it running faster, but never seemed to do much for preventing crashes. Not sure if I have motherboard issues or what.

And, yes, I'll want a Vista machine. I'm hoping (with nothing to really base it on) that it'll be a more reliable OS. Of course, I'd probably just get a Mac if they weren't so damn pricey...

You know, this just reminded me of a problem I had with my old 450 mhz backup / storage machine. No matter what I did to it, it was always unstable. Things locked up, blue screens, it laid down and died a LOT. You could NOT trust it. When I took it apart, the bottom side of the heat sink on the main processor and the fan were literally burnt black! There were some degraded places you could SEE on the circuitry "tracks" on the green boards. Maybe that's the problem ...