System error: Lsass.exe When trying to update a password the return status indicates that the value provided as the current password is not correct.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

$\"Windows$ <\/a><\/p>\n

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:\r\n\r\n1. Insert your Windows installation disc and restart your computer.\r\n2. Choose your language settings, and then click \"Next.\"\r\n3. Click \"Repair your computer.\"\r\n\r\nIf you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.\r\n\r\nFile: \\Windows\\System32\\config\\system\r\n\r\nStatus: 0xc000000f\r\n\r\nInfo: Windows failed to load because the system registry file is missing, or corrupt.<\/pre>\nCauses of this Error<\/span><\/h3>\nThis error has been known to occur as a result of the following cause:<\/p>\n
Cause 1: The Windows registry is corrupted<\/h4>\nThe Windows registry may become corrupted because of many different reasons, including but not limited to virus attacks, power outages, disk write errors, or mistakes made by the user while configuring the registry manually.<\/p>\nFixing “\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\CONFIG\\SYSTEM is missing or corrupt<\/strong>” on Windows<\/h2>\nWindows Setup CD\/DVD Required!<\/strong>
Some of the solutions below require the use of the Microsoft Windows setup CD or DVD. If your PC did not come with a Windows installation disc or if you no longer have your Windows setup media, you can use Easy Recovery Essentials for Windows<\/a> instead. EasyRE will automatically find and fix many problems, and can also be used to solve this problem with the directions below.<\/p>\n
Fix #1: Restore corrupted registry via Easy Recovery Essentials<\/h3>\nEasy Recovery Essentials can fix many errors such as this automatically using its built-in Automated Repair option. EasyRE is currently available for Windows XP<\/strong>, Vista<\/strong>, 7<\/strong>, 8<\/strong>, Windows 10<\/strong>, and Windows 11<\/strong> and can be downloaded and created on any PC.<\/p>\n\nDownload Easy Recovery Essentials<\/a>. Make sure to note your Windows version (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, or Windows 11) before you download EasyRE. This guide can help you identify what version of Windows<\/a> you have installed.<\/li>\n
Burn the image. Follow these instructions on how to burn the bootable ISO image<\/a>\u00a0very carefully, as making a bootable CD can be tricky! Alternatively, these instructions explain how to create a bootable EasyRE recovery USB stick\/drive<\/a>.<\/li>\n
Boot up your PC from the Easy Recovery Essentials CD<\/a> or USB you created.<\/li>\n
Once EasyRE is running, choose the “Automated Repair” option and click Continue<\/kbd>.\n<\/a><\/p>\nChoose “Automated Repair” in Easy Recovery Essentials<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
After EasyRE scans your computer’s drives, identify and select the drive letter for your Windows installation\u00a0from the list, and then click on the Automated Repair<\/kbd> button to begin.\n<\/a><\/p>\nChoose the drive associated with the Windows installation you’re trying to repair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
Easy Recovery Essentials will start analyzing the selected drive for problems. EasyRE will test for and attempt to automatically correct errors with the disk, partition, bootsector, filesystem, bootloader, and registry. No intervention is required, as EasyRE’s repair is fully automated:\n<\/a><\/p>\nEasy Recovery Essentials searches for errors and makes corrections to the selected Windows installation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
Once the process is complete, EasyRE will report its findings. Click on the Restart<\/kbd> button to reboot your PC and test the changes.<\/li>\n
The “\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\CONFIG\\SYSTEM is missing or corrupt” error should now be fixed as your PC begins to load:<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\nYou can download Easy Recovery Essentials from here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Fix #2: Reboot a PC into “Last Known Good Configuration”<\/h3>\nRebooting a PC into \u201cLast Known Good Configuration\u201d mode forces a computer to use a saved version of the Windows registry that was in place the last time that computer successfully booted. This should fix all registry-related boot errors, assuming the last registry backup is available and is good condition.<\/p>\n
Here are the steps to restore a PC to a previous state:<\/p>\n\nRestart the computer<\/li>\n
Wait for the BIOS to complete POST (the screen with manufacturer logo and\/or system information)<\/li>\n
Quickly<\/em>\u00a0begin tapping\u00a0F8<\/kbd>\u00a0repeatedly, until the list of boot options is displayed<\/li>\n
Choose \u201cLast Known Good Configuration (Advanced)\u201d<\/li>\nPress\u00a0Enter<\/kbd>\u00a0and wait for the PC to boot.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nHere is an example of the Windows Advanced Boot options menu, with the “Last Known Good Configuration” option selected:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nLast Known Good Configuration Boot screen<\/p>\n<\/div>\nFix #2: Check the disk file system with CHKDSK utility<\/span><\/h3>\nSince the error is often caused by a corrupt registry, checking and fixing the Windows file system with CHKDSK might be a good solution.<\/p>\n
Here are the steps to run CHKDSK using the Windows XP Recovery Console:<\/p>\n\nInsert the Windows XP installation CD<\/li>\n
Restart the computer and boot from the CD<\/li>\n
Press any key to boot from the CD<\/li>\n
Press R<\/kbd> when the Windows Options menu is loaded to access Repair Console<\/li>\n
Enter the Administrator password<\/li>\nWhen the Command Prompt appears, type the following command:\nchkdsk C: \/r<\/pre>\nwhere C:<\/code> (without a trailing slash: \/<\/code>) is letter of the Windows installation drive (it’s usually C:<\/code>)<\/li>\n
Press Enter<\/kbd><\/li>\nRemove the CD and type exit<\/code>:\nexit<\/pre>\n<\/li>\nPress Enter<\/kbd><\/li>\nRestart the PC<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nHere is what the PC’s console output should look like after chkdsk is done checking and fixing the drive file system:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nWindows XP chkdsk results screen<\/p>\n<\/div>\nFix #3: Restore the registry manually<\/h3>\nThe corrupted registry may also be fixed by replacing it with a clean copy that was created on the hard drive when Windows was installed. Note that this operation will restore the system to a state that might be very far from its current state; however, it still should be possible to recover user data in that state. This procedure also should not be used if the computer has an OEM-installed operating system, because the system registry hive on OEM installations creates passwords and user accounts that did not exist previously. This means that if these steps are followed on an OEM machine, then it may not be possible to log back into the recovery console to restore the original registry hives.<\/p>\n
First, a backup of all current registry files is made so that they could be restored if anything goes wrong. Then, the existing registry is deleted, and replaced with a clean copy from the C:\\Windows\\Repair folder.<\/p>\n\nInsert the Windows XP setup CD and restart the computer<\/li>\n
Press any key to boot from the CD<\/li>\n
Press R<\/kbd> to access Repair Console<\/li>\nEnter the Administrator password. When the Command Prompt appears, type the following commands, one at a time and press Enter<\/kbd> after each command, replacing C:<\/code> with the Windows’ drive letter:\nmd tmp\r\ncopy c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\system c:\\windows\\tmp\\system.bak\r\ncopy c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\software c:\\windows\\tmp\\software.bak\r\ncopy c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\sam c:\\windows\\tmp\\sam.bak\r\ncopy c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\security c:\\windows\\tmp\\security.bak\r\ncopy c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\default c:\\windows\\tmp\\default.bak<\/pre>\n<\/a><\/p>\nBacking up current registry hives<\/p>\n<\/div>\ndelete c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\system\r\ndelete c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\software\r\ndelete c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\sam\r\ndelete c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\security\r\ndelete c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\default<\/pre>\n<\/a><\/p>\nDeleting current registry hives<\/p>\n<\/div>\ncopy c:\\windows\\repair\\system c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\system\r\ncopy c:\\windows\\repair\\software c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\software\r\ncopy c:\\windows\\repair\\sam c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\sam\r\ncopy c:\\windows\\repair\\security c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\security\r\ncopy c:\\windows\\repair\\default c:\\windows\\system32\\config\\default<\/pre>\n<\/a><\/p>\nRestoring registry hives from a repair folder<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\nType exit<\/code> and remove your CD:\nexit<\/pre>\n<\/li>\nPress Enter<\/kbd><\/li>\nRestart your computer<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nRight after the boot process is completed successfully, it is possible to either backup all user data and reinstall Windows from scratch, or follow the procedure described in the Windows KB corrupted registry article<\/a> to manually restore the system registry to a more newer version that was backed up by System Restore.<\/p>\n
More Information<\/h2>\nLinked Entries<\/h3>\n\nchkdsk<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nSupport Links<\/h3>\n\nEasy Recovery Essentials for Windows<\/a> – our repair and recovery disk.<\/strong>
\n
\nIt’s an easy-to-use and automated diagnostics disk. It’s available for Windows 8<\/a>, Windows 7<\/a> and Windows Vista<\/a>. It’s also available for Windows XP and Windows Server.<\/p>\nRead more at Windows Recovery Disks<\/a>.\n<\/li>\n
The NeoSmart Support Forums<\/a>, member-to-member technical support and troubleshooting.<\/li>\n
Get a discounted price on replacement setup and installation discs: Windows XP<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nApplicable Systems<\/h3>\nThis Windows-related knowledgebase article applies to the following operating systems:<\/p>\n
\nWindows XP (all editions)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get the fix to the “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\CONFIG\\SYSTEM” boot error message affecting Windows XP. About the “\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\CONFIG\\SYSTEM is missing or corrupt” error Description and Symptoms The error messages, alerts, warnings, and symptoms below are tied to this error. Symptom 1:\u00a0 \\Windows\\System32\\Config\\System is missing or corrupt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":508,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3SlTq-6U","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/508"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5611,"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions\/5611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Cause 1: The Windows registry is corrupted<\/h4>\n
The Windows registry may become corrupted because of many different reasons, including but not limited to virus attacks, power outages, disk write errors, or mistakes made by the user while configuring the registry manually.<\/p>\n

Description and Symptoms<\/h3>\n
The error messages, alerts, warnings, and symptoms below are tied to this error.<\/p>\n

Description and Symptoms<\/h3>\nThe error messages, alerts, warnings, and symptoms below are tied to this error.<\/p>\n

Cause 1: The Windows registry is corrupted<\/h4>\nThe Windows registry may become corrupted because of many different reasons, including but not limited to virus attacks, power outages, disk write errors, or mistakes made by the user while configuring the registry manually.<\/p>\n

Description and Symptoms<\/h3>\n
The error messages, alerts, warnings, and symptoms below are tied to this error.<\/p>\n

Cause 1: The Windows registry is corrupted<\/h4>\n
The Windows registry may become corrupted because of many different reasons, including but not limited to virus attacks, power outages, disk write errors, or mistakes made by the user while configuring the registry manually.<\/p>\n