windows2000 question...

[Will Robinson]

I did something to hose my windows2000 install on drive (C), not sure what I did wrong...
I have since installed windows2000 on a different physical drive (W) and all is going well re-installing software etc.

When the original installation of 2000 died it first showed up at boot as the following warning:
"WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEMced start up options for windows is corrupt or missing"

I tried to use the install disk to repair but no dice. Floppy died the same day so I passed on trying an emergency repair disk.

Just for the hell of it, and because I really needed to get into some of the app's I had installed (to retrieve data...registration codes etc.) I decided to go into WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\ and I renamed the file named: SYSTEM to: SYSTEMnamechanged

Well now the original windows2000 installation boots just fine. I've been able to run a few app's, back up some stuff and transfer it to the W: drive to complete the transformation to the new windows2000 installation.

*Does anyone know what that file: WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is?

*Can I trust the old installation of windows now?

*If I reformat the (C) partition of the drive the old system was on will I be done with it safely?

*Is there anything related to the masterboot process I need to deal with since both incarnations of the windows2000 are still a choice in POST?

[fliptw]

that be a registry file. I think.