Drivers and Utilities

[#1]

I have a Satellite 5205-S503.  The HDD corrupted so I bought a new WD 160 GB EIDE and installed it.  I've tried to use the recovery CD's twice and I got the same error messgae both times.  I start the recovery as instructed and it goes through fine to the third CD.  When that is finished the computer instructs me to take out the CD and push any button.  I do and it starts to boot up and then stops with an error:  "Windows could not start because the following file is missing:"  \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

The Recovery instructions also say that after the third CD is installed a final message will appear to insert the disc 1 again, but it never got to this point.

Can anybody tell me what my problem might be and how I can get past this?

Thank you,

Tony

[#2]

Satellite 5205-S503 

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Windows could not start because the following file is missing:"  \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM 

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Tony, it means the System hive, which supplies an important branch of your registry, is not detected or is corrupt. Windows will not run without the registry. See KB307545.

I can only surmise that the CDs are not supplying the correct installation software. Try copying them to another set.

[#3]

Jerry,

Thank you for your comments.

Do you think getting a smaller HDD will help?  Maybe my 160 GB HDD is beyond the capacity of Windows XP

[#4]

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Do you think getting a smaller HDD will help?  Maybe my 160 GB HDD is beyond the capacity of Windows XP

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Conceivably. Cee_64 was talking about this situation.

   How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in Windows XP

It seems to me that the installation would know about it earlier if that were the problem. But it can't hurt to try a 120 GB drive if it's easy to obtain.