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In Windows XP there's a file called SYSTEM in the %SYSTEMROOT%SYSTEM32CONFIG directory. On my system it was about 3.5 MB. Apparently it is quite essential to Windows XP operations. WinXP kept booting up saying it was corrupt and that I should repair it with my WinXP disk. I booted into WinXP from CD-ROM, chose Repair console, and set to it. I saw a SYSTEM.SAV file there and said to myself, "Aha! That must be the one I need to restore." Nope. Big mistake. Quite costly. That SYSTEM.SAV file, also taking up ~3.5 MB on my hard drive, was the one originally created during installation. When I copied it over SYSTEM and rebooted it seemed to be booting up just fine. I was thinking "YES!" when I saw the WinXP screen fade in. But then it went into the installation ... I had to re-install everything. So, the short-and-skinny of this blurb is as follows: Make a copy *RIGHT NOW* of your SYSTEM file. Call it SYSTEM.RECOVER, or something that uniquely identifies it for what it is. Or, in the alternative, delete that bastard, leftover file SYSTEM.SAV from your installation and call it that. If you ever get the message that your SYSTEM file is corrupt, you'll thank me.
Rob Note: Isn't Windows XP supposed to keep multiple copies of this file around for restores? That would seem to make sense, but I couldn't find anything concrete about it on Microsoft's site
In Windows XP there's a file called SYSTEM in the %SYSTEMROOT%SYSTEM32CONFIG directory. On my system it was about 3.5 MB. Apparently it is quite essential to Windows XP operations. WinXP kept booting up saying it was corrupt and that I should repair it with my WinXP disk. I booted into WinXP from CD-ROM, chose Repair console, and set to it. I saw a SYSTEM.SAV file there and said to myself, "Aha! That must be the one I need to restore." Nope. Big mistake. Quite costly. That SYSTEM.SAV file, also taking up ~3.5 MB on my hard drive, was the one originally created during installation. When I copied it over SYSTEM and rebooted it seemed to be booting up just fine. I was thinking "YES!" when I saw the WinXP screen fade in. But then it went into the installation ... I had to re-install everything. So, the short-and-skinny of this blurb is as follows: Make a copy *RIGHT NOW* of your SYSTEM file. Call it SYSTEM.RECOVER, or something that uniquely identifies it for what it is. Or, in the alternative, delete that bastard, leftover file SYSTEM.SAV from your installation and call it that. If you ever get the message that your SYSTEM file is corrupt, you'll thank me.
Rob Note: Isn't Windows XP supposed to keep multiple copies of this file around for restores? That would seem to make sense, but I couldn't find anything concrete about it on Microsoft's site
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