BleepingComputer.com: HP system configuration error

Friend has and HP a535w that is producing an error, machine boots up until the XP media center splash screen and then an error box appears:
System Configuration Error
The system has detected a configuration error. Please report this error to customer care using the phone number found in the Warranty and support guide that came with your PC. Unless corrected this error will prevent your PC form operating properly.Turn off your PC by pressing and holding the power button. After a few seconds your PC will automatically turn off. (Code Purple).


'i searched google and the only thing i could find
http://www.resellerratings.com/forum/tech-...ode-purple.html

was that this had something to do with "tattooing" the recover to the motherboard, and a workaround was to attach the HDD to a usable system and

open up C:\hp\bin\ConfigCheck\cfgchk.bat with notepad and modify the section that checks to see if the hard drive is tattoo'd to have it not bother checking at all. (although the hard drive will be running as slave so replace the C:\ with whatever drive letter Windows assigns it) The line to remove is: "python c:\hp\bin\ConfigCheck\run.py". This worked great for me and I hope it helps anyone else who comes along this thread as an alternative to dealing with tattoo'ing the motherboard or hard drive.

i did this and cannot find the .bat file, that path does not exist.

this machine is out of warranty and we do not want to take this anywhere to get anything serviced, i understand that a clean install of the OS will work, but id rather get it back to functioning another way if possible.
Thoughts?

Thanks

This post has been edited by BNDAZ: 08 May 2010 - 09:55 PM

http://www.techimo.com/forum/applications-...ode-purple.html

a couple of pages into this thread seem to have several fixes.

the thread in your link is the same as the one in mine...not sure why the links are different, but the content is the same, and as before, the path that is mentioned to modify the .bat file does not exist.

did you find the path
C:\hp\bin\configcheck

here is a more complete explanation.

http://www.billoblog.com/billoblog/?p=152#comments

Note the directory is a "hidden" directory so make sure you have whatever you boot configured tonot hide files and directories.

thanks for the additional link, after contacting HP with the system number and serial of the machine they have offered to fix it for free( even though its out of warranty). So they are sending a box out via FEDex.