I just had the same problem yesteray with an HP z555 that I got 3 months ago.
I called HP and they had it was probably a failing hard drive, and they
would send me a box to ship it to them to be fixed.

"Brian J" wrote:

I have been running XP Media centre Edition 2005 with all fixes and updates
from MS update installed on an AMD 2500 / 1 gb for a while with no problems
.... then the system froze with no indication of the nature of the problem.
The system had to be powered down. When the system was powered up I got an
error message 'c:\windows\system32\config\system' missing or corrupt.

Scanned knowledgebase and found
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=307545 describing registry
recovery. Following the instructions I booted into Recovery Console, chose
the only listed windows installation and got a dos prompt. The system did
not ask for the Administrator password. I can successfully issue CD, MD
commands but when I attempt a COPY command I get the message 'Access is
denied'.

Can anyone suggest what is happening and/or describe a work around please.

Regards,

Brian