emachine?

when i went to start my pc this morning, it pulled a major crapper.

about halfway through booting up, it comes up with this.

{ cannot continue booting, the file \windows\system 32\config\system - is bad or missing.
you can try repairing this by inserting the xp disc that came with your system, and pressing r on the first screen. }


i have a emachine with xp sp-2, it did not come with a xp disc, just a repair disc. when i put that disc in, it starts recovery, but stops after a few seconds and shows this

{c0000218-reg.file failure\systemroot\system32\ security or its log or alternative
it is corrupt,absent, or not writable }

then it just freezes there, and there is a high pitch whine that comes out of the mainframe.

does anyone know a way around this?

so i had to pullout my backup pc, which is 98 and slow as hell. it there a way i can download a file or program to my external drive, and load it onto the bad one?

and if by chance i can get my other one fixed. i was wondering about if i could just do a quick upgrade to this pc by loading xp over the installed 98, or if i would have to a full format?

thanks for any help

sweetie