Ok i was playing video games on my dell computer and then it froze so i turned it off and back on by holding the button down, it booted up as USUAL, but when it got to the part where the bios go to windows it says "The following file Windows/system/system32/config is missing or corrupt" and i booted from my CD drive with a windows cd, when i did this it says " no boot device available " and its not the drive because i tried my working drive, and ive tried multiple cables, and there dont seem to be any problems with the connections, its an IDE drive and the HDD is SATA. is there any way i can get it working and reinstall windows? PLEASE say yes...about the drive,did you change you first boot drive in BIOS to cd-rom?
this type of corruption are not cause by any cables,it's the windows inside.the file already corrupted.did you install any type anti virus/spy ware?
this article MIGHT help
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/
Didnt help... i could fix it but the cd drive isnt being read so it wont boot from it, same with a thumbdrive etc. Yes the CD drive was first in the list hmm,try the drive on safe mode.just MAKE sure it can read.i was wondering if your drive just have problem with the lens or etc.like mine years ago,i thought it was perfect because got power & spin inside it but not read it
try to boot the windows disc from the bios,not from the windows ok?
i mean by pressing f9 (i guess).Its not the drive itself iv tried two drives, its like theres something wrong with the data that goes through. and the entire TIME ive been trying to boot from bios it doesnt even go to windowsThe system cannot start up because there is no operating system for it to load. The boot process will halt here. Some systems may give you the option to retry the boot or to enter setup at this point, as a convenience. Otherwise, you must reboot the PC.

All of the bootable drives in the system are not functioning. Normally this means that the floppy disk drive is either absent or not functioning, or has no disk in it, and the hard disk is either not connected or has no bootable active partition on it.

But in your case you say everything is conected try -

http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/hdd/fail_Failure.htm