Talk this noob thru BSOD problem,please!

[berry120]

Hirens boot is what I reccoment. A tool for a broken Drive, system, registry or files - restores your computer even if you have double deleted your "My computer" folder and everything from your registry.

If the drive is physically damaged no boot cd, however good, is going to repair it to working order again.

Please don't recommend things unless you know what you're doing, it can mislead people otherwise. For example this:

restores your computer even if you have double deleted your "My computer" folder and everything from your registry.

...is complete rubbish. What the hecks double deleting?! The "My computer" icon on the desktop isn't a folder, you can't delete it. And neither can you delete everything from your registry. And even if that was true, it couldn't guarantee to restore any of them. Sure it'll give it a shot the same as most file recovery tools will, but there's never any guarantee that you'l recover anything - or that the information you recover will be in any way usable.

 

[Juan handed]

So,I have this Dell Inspiron laptop since 2004.Runs with XP.



So,now at start-up I get a black screen that says:

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 Wiindows Setup using original setup CD-rom.Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair.

Where is the 'r' and what does the first screen look like?

 

[Juan handed]

I'm afraid it looks like the hard drive is dying, and is corrupting data.

Take me thru some steps I can attempt to recover some data,if it's possible?

Between the hard drive,battery,age,etc.It doesn't really make sense to try to salvage the computer,but I'd like to get some data off it if I can.

 

[Kage]

You can buy laptop hard drive adapters, since I think if you have a desktop, it won't have the right amount of pins to connect to it.

http://www.google.co.uk/products/ca...ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CA4Q8wIwAA#ps-sellers

You'll need something like that. This will allow you to connect it to a PC in slave mode, where you should be able to get data off it, even if it is not booting into Windows, as long as it isn't completly dead.

 

[Juan handed]

You can buy laptop hard drive adapters, since I think if you have a desktop, it won't have the right amount of pins to connect to it.

http://www.google.co.uk/products/ca...ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CA4Q8wIwAA#ps-sellers

You'll need something like that. This will allow you to connect it to a PC in slave mode, where you should be able to get data off it, even if it is not booting into Windows, as long as it isn't completly dead.

Can I use an external enclosure? It's an IDE hard drive and I'd like to recover it thru the other laptop (since I don't have a desktop setup here right now).

Here's a top of the line model I was considering:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817334008