For the second time in the 2 weeks or so I've had my new computer, my system32/config/system file has been corrupted, the first time, however, windows was kind enough to tell me what was wrong, this time, I had to force a safe mode boot attempt to figure out that this file was dead, and all advanced boots have led to the same thing, a blank, black screen.

Details of star-up procedures

-Basic information is displayed (f8 bringing up advanced start options)
-screen then recieves the blinking white dash for a half a second, when Windows usually begins booting.
-Windows, however, does not boot, the screen goes blank and black before the logo is even displayed
-analysis of the Safe mode booting queue shows the boot process freezes at windows/system32/config/system

Windows, however does not seem to recognize system32 is damaged, as it attempts to boot, fails, and locks up. This does not sound good for my computer.

Latest problems: only 1 I can think of, relating to a game of mine.

Medal of Honor Pacific Assault corrupted itself and stopped working, forcing me to uninstall it. My reinstall attempt failed, the install stopped at about 3/4 done, and I cancelled it. After a few hours flying time, I decided to open up IE7 while in flight to entertain myself. This caused the computer to lock up, and after resetting and sifting, I found my system config was corrupted, but windows needed the information forced out.

I am going to attempt a repair-install of windows tomorrow.

If anyone with more experience in Windows trouble can help me (the assemblers erroneously left out the "beeper," by the way, but it does not seem an inherrent hardware problem), please do tell me what you might think has happened. Has EA screwed me, or should I find a new copy of Windows?

Now, is it possible for third-party computer software to corrupt one of these files?

Master boot record
Partition tables
Boot sector
NTLDR file

And would any of these be located in system32/config/system?

An extremely irate Jet...

Urgh... these computers have given me so much grief for the past few months... I swear, I'm never buying another again so long as I KNOW it is coming from competent professionals.

I am SURE it was not my usage that killed windows AGAIN, by the way, I have done nothing out of my ordinary routine with these machines, and the only possible causes I see are that badly coded game somehow corrupting one of the above files, or Windows is playing coy with me, in which case, Microsoft is probably going to recieve a none-too-happy eMail from me complaining about all the time Windows has wasted for me (that of course is very slim in my mind).

I guess the only question now is how can I protect myself from spontaneous software failure?

(Anti-virus is already covered)