Corrupted Windows file won't fix

[JamesAddiction]

An odd thing has happened- my computer on power up a while ago loads windows xp for a bit, then goes to a screen saying that there is a corrupt or missing file in the windows/system32/config/ or some folder like that. That's not the odd thing. I fixed it by running the windows auto-repair from the CD.

The odd thing is a few weeks later, the same problem arose, but I cannot load windows from the CD. It doesn't recognize it as having a valid boot record. The drives come up in BIOS, the jumpers are set to the correct master/slave settings, and I even swapped out CD drives to make sure that the problem wasn't there.

It's not a hardware problem from the CD drive, I'm sure its just a boot sector virus or something similar from the location of the missing/corrupted file, and how it dies in the black windows xp boot up screen.

My question is- what could be the problem in that it sees the optical drives in BIOS, but can't read the XP CD boot record to get the repair screen up?

 

[Unforgiven]

did a setting get changed in the bios that tries to boot from the hard drive before the cd rom?

 

[JamesAddiction]

I've changed BIOS to boot from CDROM first, and if i don't disable other boot devices, it just skips over the CDROM not finding a boot record (as if it was a game or audio CD) and then fails to load windows as normal.

disable other boot devices, then it hangs on the CD saying to replace media with a bootable one

 

[Unforgiven]

do you have a copy of any other bootable cd's that could be used as a test to see if another cd works and the xp one just isnt being recognized?

 

[JamesAddiction]

i dont have any other bootable CDs, but I've tried multiple copies of XP (real and "backup")