WinXP crash and icons corrupted

[gothic]

Hi Guys .. really getting sick of XP crashing every few weeks on me ...

Anyways .. I am running XP Pro with SP1 and yesterday I had another crash when I rebooted my PC with the following error

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

Unlike 2 weeks ago(where I had to reformat the HD and reinstall everything from scratch) I was able to recover this using windows repair function.

When the machine did reboot for some reason my icons have ... well "shattered" for some reason .. they look as if only bits of the picture exist ... sorry dont have a screen shot with me .. will get one up latter tonite ..

I was able to fix the ones on the tool bar by selecting properties and reselecting the icon .. but most of the icons in the start bar are corrupted.

Can someone let me know why this would have occured ?
Any quick fixes ?
and what can I do to stop error messages like the above from occuring once again ?

Thanks in advance guys

:(

[XBoy]

Usually weird-ass errors like the things that are happening to you, are due to faulty memory. Make sure you have memory that's not faulty, and that your motherboard likes. In order to test this download a program called Memtest86 v3.0. Burn it to a CD and let it run for about 5 hours. Heres the link Windows XP of all things should not be doing that to you. If it's not the memory it could be your HDD ready to die, or your mobo just sucks donkey-balls. It's probably one of those two if it's not your RAM. I of course assumed already that you have sufficent heating for your 1337-box :thumb:

[PersianImmortal]

I agree, the likely culprit is either the memory, or if the memory is rock solid and can take the speed, then the CPU may be overheating.

[gothic]

Guys .. .thanks for the suggestions so far ...

Probably a pretty silly question on my behalf .. but since I have been using my system for nearly a year now, it was new when I got it how is it possible to test that the HD could be dying ?

Also if the CPU is overheating how will that affect the OS while botting up .. or is a case of when its overheating and running the OS is not functioning correctly ??

[PersianImmortal]

AN overheating CPU will start having random system errors. Open your case and touch the heatsink on the CPU while running. If it's extremely hot (burning) you've got a problem.

As for your hard drive, check the manufacturer's website. Seagate for example has a diagnostic program you can download and run in DOS to check the drive for errors.

[asklepios]

if my memory serves me well, we had a similar error a few weeks ago. the guy also had the same error of system file getting corrupted.
the problem there was a bad O/C. though my point rounds up to the same thing of either heat or bad memory but i thought it would be nice to point out that u r not alone with the problem.