Another thing you can do is replace that system file with one from the wincd (dont over write it, change the name to system_old), boot the pc and do a system restore.
Well right now I'm running C:\>chkdsk /r. What do you mean by replacing the system file with the one on the Window's CD? Agh, wheres Apokalipse, b1gapl, and the others when you need them!
Haha, on the Win CD there is an i386 folder, in there is a spare 'system' file. its part of your registry so if you copy that into your windows folder everything is going to be screwy, but it will start up.
Reformatting is always a last resort for me. There is always a way, A system restore could be all you need, if it was turned on, if we can get it to that.
And I was like oh my god. Loll, well formatting is easier. This time, I'm creating 2 partitions so that when the partition with my OS is corrupted, I'll just reformat that partition instead of reformatting everything like what I'm doing right now.