XP won't boot . . .for the 2nd time. . . whats wrong?

[Joecheng]

XP would just randomly not boot up. The first time happened when Diablo 2 froze. I restarted and it said that the following file is missing or corrupted: \windows\system32\config\system. I reinstalled windows that time and it was fine. Then yesterday, Kazaa said there wasn't enough system memory (I have 512 MB DDR, and there was only MSN messenger running in the background) after i ended Kazaa i restarted and the same file came up missing. I know i can just reinstall windows again but i want to make sure that it isn't some other problem that is causing this file to go missing. How does a file become "corrupted", i am assuming it got corrupted because it can't be missing because it started up fine before. Could it be hardware?
MY system is:
ECS P4VXAD
P4 2.26
512 MB DDR
Creative Sound Blaster Live! Platinum
Asus V8170 Geforce 4 MX 440
How can i prevent some thing like this from happenng again?:disgust::disgust:

 

[DeschutesCore]

You will need to test your hardware. You might be getting stray EMI from a speaker or other electronic device. Your machine itself can cause EMI. Download a program like GoldMemory or MemTestx86 and go from there. If the RAM is goog, test the CPU, and so on.

If nothing appears to cause the problem, look at the environment. Is there a new stereo or TV around? Was something moved recently? Diagnosing problems is not really a 1, 2, 3, fixed kind of thing. It's lots of little steps.

DC

 

[Abzstrak]

also, is this system overclocked at all? if so clock it back to default and test

 

[Joecheng]

The system isn't overclocked . . . how do i run the RAM test. . etc?