Dell notebook 1011-8943 Windows/system32/config/system missing

Hello my daughters laptop has a black screen with the message "windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupted

Windows/system32/config/system

You can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup using the original setup cdrom
Select r at first screen to repair.....

Selecting r doesn't do anything and when I try to tap f8 and use other options it always reverts back to the same screen as above, please help as I've pictures of my daughter when she was a baby on it that I would love to get onto a usb