[PCCFRAN]

My desktop, make unknown, has two hard drives. The second was installed because the original was very small. It is about 5 years old and worked beautifully until the hard drive died after weeks of humming and buzzing. I think it has 512mb of ram.
Now when I try to boot up I get the message 'Windows 2000 has missing or corrupt file.
WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM.
I tried hooking up a Western Digital 320 gig external hard drive, expecting to be able to use it in place of the bad internal drives. All I get is the above error message. Any suggestions as to how to get it up and running?

 

[alwrmc]

As I read your post I get this information.....Your computer has two hard drives. I assume the original is the one that you say is too small. The second was added because the 1st/original was too small. You say your hard drive failed. Which one? the original or the one that was added later? If the original is the one you boot from and it is the one that failed, then you need to make the 2nd one your boot drive and it will have to have Windows installed on it. There is a bit more to the solution, but you will have to supply more information before someone can adequately assist you.

 

[PCCFRAN]

ALWRMC....I don't know which hd went bad, but i suspect the newer bigger one. I have since been advised that if it's only the files and not the drive itself, I can install windows 2000 (current OS) and it would overwrite and correct the error. I have been checking around and can only see Windows 2000 professional version available. Do you think that would be ok to try? I'm pretty sure I had the home version before.

 

[JohnWill]

You can't boot Windows from an external hard disk. What are you really trying to do?

 

[DCM1519]

It sounds like the problem is in the C: drive.

Did you try to boot up in safe mode?

When you said that only Windows 2000 Professional is the only version available, do you mean that this is a disk that you have in your possession?