So, you have a Toshiba laptop and Windows doesn’t want to start anymore and shows a message in the form of ‘system config corrupt’ and ‘please insert the original Windows disk and press ‘r’ to start Windows Recovery Console’.
If you read this, it is already too late (that is, unless you have the original XP disk, but this is highly unlikely since your Windows XP is an OEM one). Your only option is to use the Toshiba Recovery Disk (which should come with your laptop) and that one has several options but all of them lead to the ‘one way’: DESTROY UR D474. So: before you run that, use Knoppix to retrieve all your precious data and start the recovery (this is not as hard as it sound: you basically insert the Knoppix disk, insert your USB backup drive and off you go). Or:
If you read this before something bad has happened: most OEM installs don’t include the much needed ‘Windows Recover Console’. This is something you have to install yourself manually and trust me, you will need it.
Most OEMs install basic Windows XP data in the C:\windows\i386 directory: this is the directory you should head for and look for a file called ‘winnt32.exe’. Install the Console by issuing the following command:
YourDriveAndWindowsDirectory:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons
So: if you ran into that error shown above and you did install the recovery console, this is the Microsoft KB article you should read.