hi can anyone help when i try to start my pc i get an error message windows system 32 subfolder missing i try everything i know but it wont even start in safe mode or do anything it wont even let me run a xp disc to wipe the pc and start again if i press f8 none of the commands will work liken last known good that worked safe mode or anything i am realy stuck as to what to do as i have alot of stuff on tyhe harddrive that i need any help would be greatly apprichated thankyou very much
You won't be able to fix this with a windows xp disk.. what you need is a win98 boot floppy. If your system32 folder is missing windoze has had it. There are too many files to manually rebuild it. You can get a 98 boot disk here http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm When you boot from it then you will need to exercise those long forgotten dos skills to navigate to the C:\windows\system32 directory and see if it exists. There is a trick you can try at this point.. I'm assuming you have a working XP machine? Copy the system32 folder complete onto a cd, then use dos to navigate to the cd.. Copy the system32 folder from the disk over the broken one.. Reboot and see if anything works. (can't for the life of me remember dos copy command format.. it's been a long long time) http://www.comsci.us/dos/navigate.html http://www.computerhope.com/overview.htm http://www.computerhope.com/copyhlp.htm I'm feeling generous.. a little dos 101
Chances are that you have an NTFS partition, so win98 won't even see it. You could try the XP recovery console though. You need to make sure that your system is set to boot from CD before your HDD if you want to boot the CD.
Had that same problem about a year ago.Had to reinstall windows xp.I was able to boot in safe mode.Which was a Plus.I tried windows repair,98 boot disc. If you had a system restore point,it might work.I never had one,so i could'nt even try.
Looks like a virus or an update (or somebody has been deleting things at random) http://www.gidforums.com/t-6251.html The virus is C:\WINDOWS\system32\p2pnetwork.exe Knowing that I think this XP installation is a gonner. For people who don't seem to grasp basics.. DOS 6.2 will see the file allocation table on FAT FAT12 FAT16 FAT32 and NTFS drives. XP will run from FAT32 and NTFS drives, you can mix and match because the dos used in 98/me/2000 and XP is basically the same. Once the computer boots it is possible to access both the file table on the HDD and the cd-rom. It's also possible to use any linux boot cd for the same purpose IF you know the way to mount the drive r-w.. not safe, but possible. This IMHO is just one of the reasons windows is a pile of unstable insecure crap. Important parts of the OS can wander off and get lost.. total s**t!
DOS 6.2 can't even handle FAT32 let alone NTFS. You would need something like: http://www.free-av.com/antivirclassic/avira_ntfs4dos.html Easier just to use the recovery console though. Press F10 during the start of Windows text-mode setup. 2000 and XP are not the same as 9x/ME. They are NT based, not DOS based.
