Hi! I got the following problem : first of all , I am a great culprit beacuse I did not use Winrecue or Regvac in time while I am registered user for both ; but I hope that this great culpability will not prevent somebody to try  helping me somehow ; I recentely had a perfectly working configuration ; double boot with XP Pro installed on two different partitions ; suddenely error messges appear wich were telleing me about some bluetooth dll ; never mind ; for some stupid reason , instead of looking for last good configuartion , I restored the PC 3days ahead ; I left the room for a while and whaen I came back , the restart told me that it coould not find WINDOWS\System 32 \Config \system ; the possibility of booting noramlly on the partititon I wished to restore disppeared ; I do not know how to use the Windows recovery console , the only option left ;the partition is fully readable from the other partition ; there I can notice that the missing file is located in various places , of course with other dates than the one where I left my system try to restore ; my question is :
Without having recourse to Windows recovery console , is it possible to copy the missing file in its correct location ? If there is such a possibility , is there any chance that the system will reboot normally ? Of course I will loose installation of many programs , but at least all my settings will be there without letting me completely reinstall Windows; I made an iso image of my drive where the disaster happened so I hope to be able to restore folders in cas everything fails but if I could know a good procedure to copy the missing file at some cost , described above I will be very very gratefull ; I Have some tools which I should have used properly to avoid that but beeing french I did not dare use them as fully as I should because some pages in help  of these programs , writtne in english were quite obstruse to me . Somebody has a hint ? OLIVIER GEBUHRER
By the way microsoft support kB describes this problme but again indicates how to use RECOVERY CONSOLE ; unfortunately , there are lots of commands there and I do not know how to use them ; I will not learn , I'm afraid in some hours ;My question is about the possibilty of an painless way .  

   If you have access to the drive from another system, yes, you can just copy the files there.  The only time you cannot copy them is if you are trying to replace the registry files of the Windows that is running.
   I would suggest that you find the most recent backup of the registry that you have.  If you used WinRescue daily to make backups, you can use the latest WinRescue backup.  Or you can find the latest Restore Point (I tell in another post how to find the registry backup of Restore Points - http://www.regvac.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?b-WR/m-1137596287/).  I would copy all of the registry files to the Windows\System32\Config folder and rename them to the proper names (system, software, sam, security, etc.).  If you have a recent enough backup, you should not have to reinstall any programs and Windows will start normally.
   By the way, the Last Good Configuration and the other restore options available from the boot menu hardly ever work.  You need to start using WinRescue daily to make registry backups.

Quoted from Ray    If you have access to the drive from another system, yes, you can just copy the files there.  The only time you cannot copy them is if you are trying to replace the registry files of the Windows that is running.    I would suggest that you find the most recent backup of the registry that you have.  If you used WinRescue daily to make backups, you can use the latest WinRescue backup.  Or you can find the latest Restore Point (I tell in another post how to find the registry backup of Restore Points - http://www.regvac.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?b-WR/m-1137596287/).  I would copy all of the registry files to the Windows\System32\Config folder and rename them to the proper names (system, software, sam, security, etc.).  If you have a recent enough backup, you should not have to reinstall any programs and Windows will start normally.    By the way, the Last Good Configuration and the other restore options available from the boot menu hardly ever work.  You need to start using WinRescue daily to make registry backups.

Dear Ray,
First of all many gratefull thanks for having paid attention ; now your first sentence (unquoted in this post ) is clear : I have access to the drive from another system ; so , by browsing the ill-behaving system drive (Folder Windows\system32\config ) , I obeerved that TWO System files are missing , namely System and Software ; they are not corrupted , they are simply not there . I have copies of these files and access to them from another location corresponding to a previous backup (Systemfiles backup) ; however of course two months old ; you say that I should copy all the registry files corresponding to the same date (I am not using a backup done by Winrescue as I told in my former post (Apologize ); as only two of them are missing is it not sufficient to have them copied? Again at some cost regarding programs installed inbetween ?Unfortunately I do not have any recent restore points : I had a lot just before the disaster and I used One of them ; the restoration process began , I left the room for some moment and , ...When I came back the disaster had occurred; moreover , the process washed up all RESTORE POINTS so I have NONE TO my disposal , at least created by Windows.
Last point (not very important here but just strange to me ) your last sentence tells that other options available from the boot menu hardly ever worked ; but when I got difficult crashes, I used LGC (Last Good...) more times than I can tell and it ususlly worked perfectly ; what happened here , I do not know .
letting aside other options usisng backups which are not at my disposal , do you confirm that I can just copy the missing sytem files, even if their dates of creation are anterior to other system files ? Thanks OLIVIER GEBUHRER  
Ah , and by the way , I got also access to the so-called "Repair"folder within Windows folder ; are the system files found there (again with a past date of about 2 months) usable?  That is , can I copy them, with any cahnce to recover the system?

   You can always try using files of different dates.  I would think that it would work.  Just copy them to there and make sure they have the correct filename.
   You should rename the files that you are going to replace, so that you can go back to them if it doesn't work.
   The Repair folder has a backup from either when you first installed Windows or from a time when you told Windows to make a backup there (usually when you are making repair diskettes).
   LGC is just a bunch of registry settings which I believe are all in the System section.  If you crash that part of the registry, it will work, but I usually crash one of the other parts of the registry and so they never worked for me.

Thank you very very much for the precisions ; I tell you if this worked .Best regardsOLIVIER GEBUHRER

The story is unbelievable ; but first of all I wish to thank you again and again heartfully , not because you solved the problme but beacuse you took the pain to answer and allow me to make steps to the conclusion ; so I did first copy all the systemfiles as you told and restarted ;it worked a bit nameley something like a complete reboot happened ; but clearly that was not what I wished , but THEN AND ONLY THEN , I got access to the GOOD REPAIR function of Windows , namely repairing a previous install ; it produces an absurd situation probably due to a mistake on my side , nameley the keyboard stopped sudennely to be a french keyboard and was an english keyboard and navigation on internet was impossible ;then I Lft my home for some holidays , bringing my laptop with me and restarted again ; but now I knew that without installing SP2 things will not go better ;so I used agin the good repair function (second time!!!) this time I rebooted with an almost functional configuration ; It took me some hours to go on microsoft'site to DOWNLOAD SP2 , this is tricky because when not installed , with SP2 , IE crashes lalla the time ; but finally , ignoring the recommandation of Microsoft NOT TO Download SP2 version for IT , It worked , installed properly and I got access to Internet , my mail and other functions ;of course I Have got to reinstall many programs but having all my settings and files at hand this is now a piece of cake ! Wonderfull !I am back ; Now there is a lesson : the use of Winrescue of course !OLIVIER GEBUHRER