ntoskrnl.exe is corrupted. windows wont open

December 16th, 2004, 9:46 am

hi i was wondering if you could help me with this similiar problem i have the same ntoskrnl.exe problem. though your steps are helpful i don't know my administrator password to get into the manuel repair so if their is any way to do that that would be great. also i was told i should make a back up of the boot.ini file and the ntoskrnl.exe if i found it i was wondeiring if you could help me

March 8th, 2005, 10:31 pm

Dear Wes19 & others of this same error.
- I may have a new twist on this-

Cause: missing or corrupt file during boot.
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Solution: Try lowering the primary partition your initial operating system is loaded on. Then re-install as planned.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Story: Mine steamed from deleting a 2nd operating system and/or changing to Linux boot loader (which overwrites the windows boot loader) & back to windows again using: FDISK /MBR

...Anyways, I tried many things including: expanding ntoskrnl.exe from the windows install cd to the system32 folder, reinstalled several times, manually edited the boot loader, blah blah blah...
Each time I re-installed using the largest DEFAULT partition size that was recommended. Well, not until I manually made a change (lower the partition), did I resolve my problem.

For what it's worth, my WORKING boot.ini shows my 2nd O.S. to be on partition 3, even though I only created 2 & windows only reports having 2. Before I made this change to the partition, windows configured the boot.ini to load my 2nd O.S. from the 2nd partition, and boot-up's failed of course. Everything I did should have worked & not brought on this error. I have done this many times before. But for whatever reasons this error arrives, I got it to go away from manually making a change and simply not using the recommended settings when I installed. It's just habit to try and squeeze every bit of space when installing.

So if the shoe fits, here is your fix.

March 13th, 2005, 4:15 am

i'm also having a similiar problem but in a harder level.
pls help me at
http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic41528.html
thanks

April 19th, 2005, 2:54 am

Hi guys,

Just out of my curiosity, I had this same problem when I tried to reboot my comp. It just freezed in the middle of rebooting the comp and it says that my ntoskrnl.exe is corrupted or missing...

So what I did was unplugging my hard disk from its data cable, and plugging it back to the cable, and the same with the power cable that is connected to the hard disk. And it fixed it... hm... anyone knows why? Just need to know why the file got corrupted in the first place and could be fixed by unplugging the data cable and plugging it back to the hd, so that when this thing happens again I know what to do not only guessing like I did.

Any reply appreciated... Thanks..

April 21st, 2005, 12:02 am

Forgot the Administrator Password?

well that will help you to reset it and move on with whatever you need to do in Windoze. Personally, i use Austrumi: here or [url=http://cyti.latgola.lv/ruuni/index_en.html[/URL]here[/url].
Now of course.. the little kiddies need not downloading the iso and then setting the adminstrator password on a pc at school to nothing as this would get you into vast amounts of trouble but i've used it to change my admin password to nothing many a times as when i would go into the recovery console and i'd type in the admin password, windows would tell me it was invalid


if you haven't done so (anyone having this problem) i would suggest going into the recovery console and doing a

Line number On/Off

Code: Select all

chkdsk /r

and seeing if that fixes anything.
hope this helps!

May 28th, 2005, 6:20 pm

hi everybody.

I have the same problem with a Windows XP Tablet edition. i don't have a windows xp cd, i don't have an internal disk drive. Both of them are miles away in Singapore and i'm currently in the United States. The only way i can think of is to boot from a USB flash drive. is there any way that i can fix my laptop while i'm still here?

thanks.

June 1st, 2005, 5:35 am

Hi,

Am new here and from a little quaint country called England and I have a rather annoying problem, well 2 annoying problems to be exact..

I came into my work this morning where I am the only desktop support person and was called in as their notes server was down. Had a look at the screen.. Had the same <windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe File is missing or corrupt on a Win 2k server.

We tried the RC but we have a Compaq Proliant server and these are touchy if all the drivers arent correct and we seemed to have lost a lot of files.

It ended up being a fresh install....which seemed to go OK. Restored all backed up data (about 55Gb) which took 3 hours.

Rebooted....


SAME ERROR.

Ok - reinstalled again windows 2000 server again..

Rebooted..

No! This time getting "Ntldr is missing, Press CTRL/ALT and DEL"

The ntldr file was misssing competley. We created a boot disk with the ntldr and boot.ini file on and used this to boot...only to see that wen we were back up that the ntldr file was missing again (as though some batch file was deleting it). So at the moment using the boot disk to keep us running..

Has anyone had a problem with this - the ntldr file being deleted after rebooting??

Pos virus or been hacked?

Thanks in advance for ANY help!

Worried in the UK.

June 1st, 2005, 6:33 am

so it seems my firefox is being gay and died while i typed my response. so time to shorten it i've had the problem but another file was missing also, but a google search yields many results for "ntldr missing" so try this:

Quote:

1. Type cd .. to go to the root of drive C. (Note the space)
2. Type the letter of the CD-ROM drive
3. Type cd i386 to change into the right directory
4. Type Copy ntldr c:
5. Type Exit

i'm assuming you could also do something like (pretending the cdrom drive is e):

Line number On/Off

Code: Select all

cd\ (if not at c:\ prompt)
copy e:\i386\ntldr
exit

hopefully you get it working. good luck.

July 25th, 2005, 8:03 am

Hey All,

I get the same ntoskrnl.exe error. I tried using Last Know Good Configuration as well as 3 Windows Boot Disk and the Recovery Consule to jump start NT, but still had no luck with it. Can anyone help?

I also tried doing the following by placing one MS-Dos disk in the floppy drive to get a command prompt. Once there I tried using the following with a Windows NT Server CD.

xcopy d:\alpha\ntoskrnl.exe c:\winnt\system 32\

Not sure if chkdsk would work as well.

Help?

July 25th, 2005, 8:44 am

well if you have a windows xp disk, then you dont need ms-dos. you can just stick in the disk & boot from it like you would when you go to install windows, but at the prompt instead of hitting enter (i believe, however irrelevant) to install windows you hit r to go to the recovery console. from there you can copy the file over. try that

btw, in windows xp the folder is NOT winnt, its just windows and there's no space between system & 32.. so itd be c:\windows\system32

also, did you follow the links on this post? and did you try what this one says
http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic24580.html&hi ... tosknl+exe

July 25th, 2005, 8:53 pm

The Windows XP Recovery Consule worked like a charm. When I got to the C:\winnt prompt and type chkdsk everything was okay after that.

AnarchY SI wrote:

well if you have a windows xp disk, then you dont need ms-dos. you can just stick in the disk & boot from it like you would when you go to install windows, but at the prompt instead of hitting enter (i believe, however irrelevant) to install windows you hit r to go to the recovery console. from there you can copy the file over. try that

btw, in windows xp the folder is NOT winnt, its just windows and there's no space between system & 32.. so itd be c:\windows\system32

also, did you follow the links on this post? and did you try what this one says
http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic24580.html&hi ... tosknl+exe

July 26th, 2005, 12:22 am

good to hear.

July 28th, 2005, 9:04 pm

I have a very similar problem. when i startup windows xp it says windows cannot startup because ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt. i dont have a bootdisk or the xp disk. so i cant fix it. is there a repair program to actually reinstall a new copy like it says. its stupid it just says please install a new copy but its not so easy as to just say that. you cant get into the computer and place the downloaded file into the correct directory. i cant even get into the computer if it wont startup and i dont have any cd's or diskettes "floppys". can anyone help.

July 29th, 2005, 12:40 pm

my computer says invalid drive specification when i type C:\windows\system32
what is wrong. i think i cant access my C drive!!
can somone help?

July 29th, 2005, 4:18 pm

i fixed ntoskrnl.exe but now the computer starts up then just sits there it is just a black screen?