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This procedure is a gigantic pain and it may be easier for some people just to reload the machine depending on the complexity and criticality of the files and software that are installed but Microsoft provides the following that may possibly get you fixed up. I've used this successfully many times.<br />
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<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545" rel="ugc nofollow">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545</a><br />
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There is a possibility though that more files than just the registry have been corrupt which can often be caused by memory or hard drive problems. It may be worth your while to first try running some hardware diagnostics on the machine.
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This procedure is a gigantic pain and it may be easier for some people just to reload the machine depending on the complexity and criticality of the files and software that are installed but Microsoft provides the following that may possibly get you fixed up. I've used this successfully many times.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545 [http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545]

There is a possibility though that more files than just the registry have been corrupt which can often be caused by memory or hard drive problems. It may be worth your while to first try running some hardware diagnostics on the machine.

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I'm receiving this message on a Windows XP box and I've attempted to run recovery from the install cd. &nbsp;After running the recovery steps now I'm in an endless reboot cycle where I can select safe mode, safe mode w/ networking, last known good, etc. &nbsp;Any ideas what I can do to get this system up and running again, without wiping out my data?
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I'm receiving this message on a Windows XP box and I've attempted to run recovery from the install cd.  After running the recovery steps now I'm in an endless reboot cycle where I can select safe mode, safe mode w/ networking, last known good, etc.  Any ideas what I can do to get this system up and running again, without wiping out my data?

\windows\system32\config\system file is corrupt

Microsoft Windows XP is the sixth release of the NT series of operating systems, and was the first to be marketed in a variety of editions: XP Home and XP Professional, designed for business and power users. The advanced features in XP Professional are generally disabled in Home Edition, but are there and can be activated. There were two 64-bit editions, an embedded edition and a tablet edition.