Recovery Console - System file will not copy

When booting to Windows XP Home the following error
message is posted.
***Windows XP could not start because the following file
is missing or corrupt: c:\windows\system32\config\system

I went to the Microsoft Knowledge base and ran steps to
repair the registry. Article says to use the recovery
console to copy c:\windows\system32\config\system to a
temp folder but an error message is given stating that the
file could not be copied or found. When you type dir in
the folder, the file is there but not able to be copied.

Any suggestions
Thanks in Advance..