Explorer and IE won't execute or run

[wwsjoe]

Custom built comp, not sure of specs
P4 1.4 or something like that
Win XP SP2
This comp has been running fine for years, few months ago I formatted it to use at our office. The past few weeks I've been getting complaints that it is slow, yesterday it quit.

It first started as a BSOD, then upon reboot I got this message:
WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is corrupt.

I found a fix for it by copying that file from the recovery console.
this is what I did in the recovery console:
md tmp

copy C:\windows\system32\config\system C:\windows\tmp\system.bak

delete C:windows\system32\config\system

copy C:\windows\repair\system C:\windows\system32\config\system

This corrected the problem I had, however now I have no GUI. I can browse to explorer.exe
but nothing happens when I execute it. Another site mentioned having a similar problem, their fix was to:
delete these from your registry (AS ALWAYS, MAKE A BACKUP FIRST IF YOU ARE NOT SURE WHAT YOU ARE DOING)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\explorer.exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\iexplorer.exe
I looked in the registry, there isn't anything
in that folder as mentioned. I tried safe mode, still no help. I have tried
everything i can find to no avail. I even ran sfc /scannow and still no difference.
I have no desktop icons, no taskbar no IE, thankfully I have firefox, that will
run. I even tried copying a new explorer.exe file from another comp running SP2,
that didn't fix anything either. I can open Outlook but it just crashes everytime
it opens. At this point I need to either fix it or at least backup my outlook.

[bst82551]

it almost sounds like a vital file has been corrupted or altered by some virus. don't quote me on that though, i'm not a windows guru like a lot of other people on this forum.

Brian

[qfisheye]

I would try reloading your operating system. Just your operating system and not your whole system. Just put your cd and reboot.

[wwsjoe]

I need to backup outlook though. It's important that I get to do that before reformatting. I don't think its viral related. I think its a hardware issue now.

About 2-5 minutes after booting it now sounds an alarm through the internal speaker. What does that mean?

[whenrik]

Does the alarm have a pattern, for example, 2 long beeps and a short beep? Very few hardware problems will slow a computer down (never say never), they are almost always a software/driver problem. The beeping however will usually indicate a hardware problem.
Try qfisheye's suggestion, it should just rebuild system files without wiping out user files. Just make sure you carefully read each screen. If you have imaging software make a copy before hand. If not, try putting the drive in another computer and see if you can browse the files structure.