ntoskrnl.exe is corrupted. windows wont open

January 17th, 2007, 11:50 am

When I turn my Toshiba Satellite P25-S509 on, it gives

the following screen:

-Safe Mode

-Safe Mode with Networking

-Safe Mode with Command Prompt

-Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)

-Start Windows Normally

None of these options will allow me to start Windows. When I click on any of them, it goes through the motion of starting Windows, but then takes me back to tihs same screen. Is there anything else I can try?
When I hit the "s" button while re-booting, it gives the message:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
Please re-install a copy of the above file

Please HELLLLLLP!
rajetrac@hotmail.com

January 26th, 2007, 2:30 pm

I'm getting the same error with my Windows XP home ed..

<windows roo>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe is either missing or corrupt.

I started a thread regarding this earlier, but figured since this was the informatino depository I'd add to it. I"ve read through all these threads and can't find a solution to my problem.

Right now i'm running chkdsk, and after that's finished I"ll let you guys know.

January 26th, 2007, 2:37 pm

Anyway, i rebuilt the bootcfg file and now i'm missing the hal.dll file. What do I do?

January 26th, 2007, 2:57 pm

On another note, I tried expanding ntoskrnl.exe, except expand is not recognized, however, copy is but Access is Denied... so I can't do that.
Any ideas?

January 27th, 2007, 10:14 am

O.k., I've obtained a Windows XP home edition CD and am no longer using the recovery disc that came with the laptop. I have inserted it, had the computer boot from it, then pressed "R". I followed the steps and entered 1.) D:
2.) cd i386 3.) copy ntldr C:_____then the following message came up, "The file could not be copied." 4.) I then typed in copy ntdetect.com C:__the same thing happened, it said "The file could not be copied."

Am I doing something wrong?


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O.k., I set the computer to start from CD, then put in the Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition CD, let it go through the motions. Then did as you suggested, but it didn't give me the option to start from a partition. It reads:
Windows XP Home Edition Setup================Setup could not read the CD you inserted, or the CD is not a valid Windows CD. Please insert one of the following windows product CDs into the CD-ROM drive:[list of Windows versions], the the options, When the CD is in the drive, press ENTER or to quit Setup, press F3. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I pressed ENTER and it brings me back to this screen. I know the CD is a valid product because it installed on my home computer a year ago. The only other CD I have is the CD that came with the laptop, but it seems to be a pared-down version of this full Windows CD. Should I try that instead, even though it says it will re-write everything? That means I'll lose my data, right? Would it be prudent to take it into the professionals, or do you think they will be unable to save my files? Lots of questions! I'm in a conundrum now!

February 23rd, 2007, 3:15 am

JrzyCrim wrote:

Hello,

If you do a repair installation of Windows (XP?), you won't have to re-install any of your apps. However, you will have to install all of your windows hotfixes and updates. You shouldn't have to do a repair install, however.

You can use the Recovery Console on your Windows CD .

Just follow the instructions at the above link.

Once at the command prompt, type in the following commands:

Edited:

Code: [ Download ] [ Select ]

cd c:\windows\system32

copy "..\driver cache\i386\ntoskrnl.exe"

1. cd c:\windows\system32
3. copy "..\driver cache\i386\ntoskrnl.exe"

If prompted to overwite the existing file, type y and enter.

If you receive a file not found error, make sure that the path in the copy command is correct. If it is correct and you still receive the error, then try the following commands:

Code: [ Download ] [ Select ]

cd "c:\windows\driver cache\i386"

expand sp1.cab -F:ntoskrnl.exe c:\windows\system32

1. cd "c:\windows\driver cache\i386"
3. expand sp1.cab -F:ntoskrnl.exe c:\windows\system32

Again, if you are prompted to overwrite the file, type y and then enter.

Also, if your OS is installed on a partition/drive other than C:, then replace any occurance of C: with the correct letter. (D: for example).

Replace any occurence of 'windows' with what is appropriate for your system. (winnt for example)

Reboot. Your system should start up normally.

well Im glad being registered here and expecting a big help which will highly be appreciated .

My Problem:
My laptop is not allowing me to get back to my desktop. An error message that appears is as follows " windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please re-install a copy of the above file. "

Went to Safe Mode but couldnt do anything yet. How can I fix it or just can delete the complete root and Install XP again ? Thanks .. Appreciate your Help

February 23rd, 2007, 7:41 pm

Did you follow JrzyCrim's instructions? Its not the Safe mode that he is talking about there but the "Recovery Console". I see that his link has died in the meantime and takes you to the homepage of another website now so here is a link to the relevant Microsoft help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654 The relevant part for you is under "How to use the Recovery Console" where it details how to boot into the recovery console using your CD.

Other than that to reinstall XP you just need to use your XP CD to boot from again.

February 24th, 2007, 4:10 am

Alkatr0z wrote:

Did you follow JrzyCrim's instructions? Its not the Safe mode that he is talking about there but the "Recovery Console". I see that his link has died in the meantime and takes you to the homepage of another website now so here is a link to the relevant Microsoft help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654 The relevant part for you is under "How to use the Recovery Console" where it details how to boot into the recovery console using your CD.

Other than that to reinstall XP you just need to use your XP CD to boot from again.

Thanks for the reply but my problem is even if I put the XP-CD in my CD rom , I dont get any option to " boot it from cd " . All I get that message else things wouldnt be that hard for me to resolve .
Im looking forward and I do believe someone will take my problem seriously and would help me to get rid of it ......thanks

February 24th, 2007, 6:00 am

When your computer boots up press "Del"(or if that doesn't work look at the black screen where it counts up your RAM to see what key to press" to enter the BIOS. Look around through the menus to find "Boot Order" Make sure that your CDROM is in the boot order before HDD-0. A typical boot order goes Floppy(if you have one), CD-ROM, HDD-0.

February 24th, 2007, 2:55 pm

May I add to the confusion? I've tried to follow all these instructions but when I press <R> to get into Recovery Console I get a different kind of error message: Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer. It gives no options. Only to press F3 to quit.

It is a new notebook and was working perfectly fine until yesterday when I could not start it because of the "<Windows root?\system32\ntoskrnl.exe." error message.

I would love any assistance.

February 24th, 2007, 5:48 pm

Hmm in your case moniand1 follow the instructions I gave above to boot into the BIOS but in your case rather than checking the boot order. Look around for a piece that has "Primary Master" and "Primary Slave" or Primary Secondary and check that they are set to Auto.

After that your best shot might actually be to use a LiveCD of some variety. It sounds possible that your partition table is shot in which case booting from a LiveCD might enable you to rebuild it. The program Partition Table Doctor was mentioned earlier in this forum by somebody and might be of help. To use this one you will need to use Barts PE Windows XP LiveCD. and add the application to it.

Links:
Partition Table Doctor: http://www.ptdd.com/
Bart's PE: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
Unfortunately you have to build Bart's PE yourself and you need to have the full XP SP 1 distribution exe to slipstream with the original Windows CD(Bart's PE explains how to do this).

Or finally if the data on the drive is not an issue at all. Is this a namebrand laptop like HP or Compaq? They quite often have a "recovery partition" that allows you to restore the computer to what it was when it came out of the factory, a call to their technical support would reveal what the key to press is. Though you will lose anything you have put on the hard drive since. Another method if its not a namebrand is to use killdisk. More full instructions are here:http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic68188-15.html

March 3rd, 2007, 5:53 am

i have this problem:
installed vista on 1st HD
installed xp on 2nd HD
after 6h of work and rebooting without problems the pc cant start xp any more -bluescreen
vista doesn´t want to work too it says bootmgr missing ...

when i tryed to reinstall vista it says ntoskrnl.exe missing or corrupt >repair vista with the dvd...
if i try to reinstall vista i get a message that some files are missing

so i cant boot windows and i cant reinstall it on a brand new computer that functioned 1 hour ago

can it be that the dvd-rw or the hdd is corrupt?

March 3rd, 2007, 2:52 pm

found my problem: 1 of my rams was "out of order"

March 3rd, 2007, 4:44 pm

Ahh classic problem. For anyone who has this problem who wants to test their RAM there is a program called MemTest that you can create a bootable floppy/CD-ROM and it will check your RAM for you if you start up your computer with it in the appropriate drive. http://www.memtest.org/

March 8th, 2007, 10:12 am

Alkatr0z wrote:

When your computer boots up press "Del"(or if that doesn't work look at the black screen where it counts up your RAM to see what key to press" to enter the BIOS. Look around through the menus to find "Boot Order" Make sure that your CDROM is in the boot order before HDD-0. A typical boot order goes Floppy(if you have one), CD-ROM, HDD-0.

Considering myself as an idiot at this point but yeah! the problem has been resolved .

Thanks Guys , thanks alot to the Owner/Members of this forum and an special thanks to Alkatr0z for pointing "Boot Order" ( the only thing which I was missing lol ). HIGHLY APPRECIATE