Hello all.
I am the IT technician at a precision moulding company in south Wales, UK.
We have a Dell Precision 690 PC that runs software to operate a measurement machine. Unfortunately, this PC has to have XP Pro installed to run the specific software.
Very recently one of my users switched on the PC after the Christmas break and it appeared to boot normally until it shut down suddenly. After retrying to boot the following error appeared:
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup using the original Setup CD-ROM.
Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair."
My initial instinct was that the HDD had failed or there was a problem with the SATA connection. But then, after opening the case I was greeted to about an inch of dust covering the motherboard and components. So then I removed the dust, removed RAM and HDD, replaced SATA cables and removed static charge (taking the BIOS battery out and holding down the power button). I tried booting the PC up again. Same error. I noticed that the HDD was plugged into the HDD_0 port as opposed to the SATA ports. Had a look in the BIOS and SATA were disabled but there were no options for the HDD ports (I have little experience with this setup).
I managed to get my hands on the OS setup disk and attempted to repair as stated in the error message. However, during the OS setup an error message appeared saying that there is no HDD detected. I tried the same method with a different HDD to see if the problem was the original HDD but the same error appeared. I tried the SATA ports instead of the HDD_0 port on the motherboard but still no joy.
After doing some reading I realise that it could be something to do with the RAID configuration, which I have no experience with.
Any help/advice or information would be greatly appreciated - I'm pulling my hair out!
Thank you.