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:

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

If prompted to overwrite 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:

cd "c:\windows\driver cache\i386"
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 occurrence of C: with the correct letter. (D: for example).

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

Reboot. Your system should start up normally.

What was that recovery installation that you mentioned? Does that require a recovery disk or simply the Windows 2000 cd?

I have had the exact same problem with my computer. I tried a million different things like copying ntoskrnl.exe from a different computer running the exact same operating system (probably except the service pack #) and I tried copying the file from the C:\winnt\system32\dllcache and C:\winnt\system32\i386\driver cache

I think in my attempt to copy from the file I had from another computer I might have copied over the existing files you suggested for recovery. Am I up a creek?

Not knowing exactly what you have done, I can't be sure. I don't know all of the differences between XP and 2000. I only have direct experience with XP.

Copying the ntoskrnl file from another system may not work if one is updated with service packs and another is not. Copying the ntoskrnl file from the original CD presents problems as well. Service packs and other updates in the past have replaced this file with newer versions. Trying to use an older version of the ntoskrnl.exe usually results in the system not booting.

In response to your first post, the recovery console is a part of the Windows 2000 installation disk. (not OEM recovery). Just follow the link at the beginning of this thread and the updated instructions for restoring the file.

If you are able, list the contents of the C:\winnt\system32\i386\driver cache directory. Specifically, which cab files are present. There may be a usable ntoskrnl file present.

Anyone that is successful in booting their system should do a complete virus scan.

Thanks Jrzy Crim,

I have tried all that you said. My brother had said that a difference in service pack number might cause a problem. I think that I covered all possible bases in advance and that there is not much hope left of replacing the ntoskrnl.exe file. But wes19 had mentioned a repair installation. Is that as he described that the system pack number would be eliminated but that my programs woul remain? I was contemplating overall format and repartitioning so any help would be much much appreciated.
thanks,
Cerberus 561

If a repair installation is an option with your CD, then all of your programs will be left intact. Service packs and updates will have to be reinstalled.

Sorry about your troubles, btw, I know what a pain things like this can be.

JrzyCrim , I have the same problem as that person, but when i turn on my computer it wont run setup, and i can not get into safe mode at all.
Can you please help me out.

i hav tried both of those sets of commands, the first says it works, then i reboot and the same problem happens. the second set of commands says that the file cannot be found.

ne help would be greatly appreciated, and thanx for all the help already[/php]

After much work, prob about 4 hours a night for like 3 nights on this one prob, not to mention my brother trying to recompile the linux kernel in order to gain NTFS readability from my linux OS to salvage some of my documents and stuff, my computer is finally up and running. It is the best machine in this household and I am much obliged to JrzyCrm and Wes19 for starting the thread. If I didn't mention you, consider yourself thanked anyway. By the way I am writing this post from this fixed machine. Oh, and one last point. I reinstalled Windows 2000 (no recovery disc or anything) and it said that is would overwrite the My Documents, yet is neither overwrote My Documents nor Program Files. Stoked!!! Just thought I'd let u know my solution to this epidemic problem. Sorry for the length.

I had the pleasure of a corrupted ntoskrnl this week myself. *lol Not sure exactly what caused it, but something went a little whacky when I instlled XP Pro as an additional OS using System Commander. I thought I had hidden the Win2k Pro partition on install, but must have missed it.

I thought immediately of this thread. Unfortunately, I can't confirm how well the instructions work because I didn't follow them. I was overdue to clean up my OS anyway, so my workaround solution was to add a third partition and installed a clean second copy of Win2K. That went off without a hitch and XP was unaffected. My reason for choosing this method was because I knew with the clean install the original corupted Win2K would still show up as my d: drive (which it does, so I still retain access to all my original files which is all I needed it for anyway. In addition, I also can access the XP files while on Win2K and vice versa. The only downside was reinstalling all the programs but I wanted better organization anyway.

Not quite the perfect workaround, but it satisfied my needs.

Ok I am having a problem with this ntoskrnl.exe file.

When I boot up my computer I get an error saying "Invalid Boot.ini file. Now booting from C:\Windows..."

Then like 5 seconds after that screen pops up, another black screen pops up saying "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupted: <windows root>system32\ntoskrnl.exe. Please reinstall this file."

Well I tried to fix the boot.ini file first by going into the recovery console and typing in:

bootcfg /rebuild. But it always says "Error: failed to successfully scan disks for Windows installations. This error may be caused by a corrupt file system, which would prevent bootcfg from successfully scanning. Use chkdsk to detect any disk errors."

I ran chkdsk and it said it fixed errors but this error still appears at startup.

So now I try to fix the ntoskrnl.exe problem by following the directions in this thread, but everything I try it just ends up saying "The following file could not be found" or something like that. I may be typing them in wrong but I tried both of the solutions from the second post numerous times. I could reinstall windows but last time I ignored these same exact errors they just eventually came back. What should I do?

Hello Duto8672,

Unfortunately I do not have any other advice to offer beyond what has already been given. It sounds as if your installation is corrupted beyond repair.

The only thing I can suggest is to start from scratch. I know this not what you want to hear but I do not believe your existing installation is recoverable.

You mentioned reinstalling Windows and that later these same problems occured. Was that a repair install? If it was a clean install, did you reformat?

During setup, you should delete all partitions and then recreate any partitions you need. Do a full format, not quick, and then proceed with the installation.

If these steps still do not fix your problem, It might be indicative of a failing hard drive. I hope for your sake it isn't but honestly, I don't know what else to suggest. You might try going to the manufacturer's website to download a diagnostic utility to test your drive.

Feel free to respond with more questions.

Good luck

I'm very sorry about your troubles.

Lately I've been getting many private messages concerning this problem. I don't mind helping out but it's best for everyone if you post your problem publicly in this thread. The chances of your problem being resolved are greater if it is posted for all to see.

That being said, I really don't have any other soulutions beyond what's already been discussed. If I do come across other solutions I will post them here. If anyone else solves their 'ntoskrnl' problem by other means, please share your solution.

Thank you 🙂

Its not looking too good. I followed those directions exactly that you gave me, deleted my partition, created a new one, and then did the full format option. When it finally hit 100% it said this:

"Setup was unable to format the partition. This disk may be damaged. Make sure the drive is switched on and properly connected to your computer. If the disk is a SCSI disk, make sure your SCSI devices are terminated. Consult your computer manual or SCSI adapter documentation for more information."

This sucks. I think it may not be properly connected or somehow switched off because the hard disk is only about 3 maybe 4 months old. I had to get a new one because My computer was saying "Boot Disk Error" and the guy we brought it to said the hard disk blew and had to be replaced. Its possible he installed it wrong or something. Its practically brand new.

I'm really sorry to hear that. I'd recommend you contact the person that installed it for you. If it was mounted improperly, excessive vibration could cause a failure. Maybe a bad power supply, although other system components would probably fail as well. These are just guesses. A technician would need to troubleshoot your computer.

What are your system specifications? What brand/model hard drive do you have? Are you using more than one drive?

I dont know off the top of my head what brand the hard drive is but Im only using one. Ill have to check when I stop home. Ill contact the guy that installed the hard drive for me and see if he can take a look at it.

edit: Is there an easy way to check the model/type of hard drive I have without opening the case? Will it be listed in the BIOS?

edit: I no longer have the errors anymore (Invalid Boot.ini and missing ntoskrnl.exe). When I boot up it simply says: "Cannot detect an operating system." Im guessing this is normal since I could format the new partition.

I found the model of my hard drive. It is a Maxtor 4K040H2. Are all hard drives compatible with all computers or no? It is an ATA hard drive by the way.

edit: I no longer have the errors anymore (Invalid Boot.ini and missing ntoskrnl.exe). When I boot up it simply says: "Cannot detect an operating system." Im guessing this is normal since I could format the new partition.

Yes, since you've formatted the drive, there is no Operating System.

Ok I found the model of my hard drive. It is a Maxtor 4K040H2. Are all hard drives compatible with all computers or no? It is an ATA hard drive by the way.

I wasn't questioning the compatibility of the drive. I was going to suggest that you search the web to see if anyone else is having similar problems or maybe search the maxtor website for a diagnostic utility. However, at this point I think it's best if you talk to the guy who installed it. I can't hazard a guess as to what could be wrong.

I found this thread at Experts Exchange:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operati ... 17408.html

After the page loads, just scroll down past the adds to see the solutions.

There may be some things mentioned there you can try.

Also this google search may yield something useful:
"Setup was unable to format the partition." XP maxtor

** Could a Moderater move the posts relating to the hard drive problem to an new thread in the Hardware forum? Thanks.

** Could a Moderater move the posts relating to the hard drive problem to an new thread in the Hardware forum? Thanks.

Given the ongoing subject in light of the new "hardware" problem and after (admittedly) a somewhat quick read of the post, I find it difficult to see exactly what thread replies should be split off. I think it's fine for now as is. If it gets way to skewed towards a hardware matter we'll take a second look.

I found this link which lets you download Maxtor PowerMax onto to a floppy drive. It is made to be booted up with your computer and will check the drive for any and all problems. I dont have a floppy with me so I will run it tomorrow. Hopefully this will give me a clear idea of whats wrong with the drive and maybe how to fix it. Thanks for the help so far I really appreciate it.

You're welcome. lol, that is a long link. 🙂

Hope that diagnostic utility helps.

For future reference, you can use to url tags to prevent long links from displaying.

ex:

[url=http://really long url]Description of link[/url]

I put the floppy with the diagnostic utility on it to scan my HD for errors. It began searching for installed devices and it popped up asking me to choose the one that was my HD. Well my hard drive wasnt listed. Under Master there was nothing recognized and under slave there was nothing recognized. The only things recognized were my DVD drive and my CD-RW drives. They were the secondary master and slave.

I opened the lid on my case and found my hard drive easily. It was secure and everything was plugged in tightly. However I couldnt find any kind of "jumper" switch that I've heard mentioned. Why isnt my HD being recognized?

edit: I also tried to do Chkdsk again and now it says "Chkdsk and found one or more unrecoverable problems."

Hmm, I really don't know what to suggest next. Is the IDE cable plugged into the motherboard securely? Perhaps the IDE cable itself is bad. Do you have a spare IDE cable laying around that you might try? Is the Drive plugged into the grey or black connector on the cabe? Typically, the black connector should be plugged into the master drive and the grey into the slave.

Since the drive worked before, it's probably at least connected properly.

Other than that, I can't think of anything else outside the drive and connectors that might cause the problem. Maybe the there is a problem with the onboard IDE controller. I can't really speculate on that.

I had a computer with a hard drive not detected last week. After about 6 hours of playing with it, trying to reinstall Windows which oddly worked to a point ) buying a new harddrive, formatting it and installing Windows on it again only to find the new drive not recognized, I took out the CMOS battery for about 15 seconds, plugged it back in and was back in business. I'll probably never know what caused the problem in the first place but it worked.

Ill definately give that a try but I have no idea what a CMOS battery looks like.

It's the small flat round Lithium C3032 battery (or something like that) -- you can't miss it. Added note - If you do remove it, you'll have to reset your system time after you get Windows back.

I am having the same problem with the corrupt or missing file, and I have read all the posts and links from the posts. I guess that I am missing something. I don't understand how to just get a dos prompt and start moving files around. Maybe someone can explain it to me.
I'm running win xp pro, and I have two Maxtor 120gb Sata drives on raid 0.
I'm not sure what the recovery console is or how to get there. I have booted from the xp cd and pressed R for recovery. It sounds like this is a different thing than the "recover console" from some of the links that I read. Anyway, whether I select recover or install from the cdrom, it claims to be examining my hard drive and never finishes. I let it run for 8 hours last night, when I got up this morning it still claimed to be examining. It does see one large 240gb drive which is correct (2X120gb raid0), but jsut never finishes examining. Could it really be taking more than 8 hours to examine a 240gb drive?
So since I can't seem to do anything with the xp cd, I have thought about making a boot disk or something, but I am not sure if that will work. The Sata Drives aren't detected until I put the drivers on. With the xp cdrom it gives me the option to press f6 to install the sata drives. I'm not too proficient in making boot disks. I have seen the option when formatting a floppy in xp. There is probably a way to get the drives to load from a boot up disk, and this would give me a dos prompt, but even if I could get access to the Sata drives, they are NTFS, so I woulnd't be able to browse them anyway would I?
I have a second pc with win xp on it so I can get on the internet, and make disks and cds. I had rather boot from a cd. I didn't even put a floppy drive on my new computer, they are so outdated, I can't believe that we still have to use them. So I am swapping the floppy drive between computers as needed. I would like to make a boot cd that would install the sata drivers, and give me access to move files around is this possible? Is this the wrong direction? What else shoudl I try?
Basically it does not seem as easy to get to the shell and move files around as all the articles and people here are acting like. What am I missing?
Please help, it really sucks to have my pc down. Thanks in advance.
Clay

I put in a new hard drive, installed windows on it, and then tried to access my original 2 Sata raid 0 drives. I can view some of the files. I was hoping to either go in and fix the corrupted files, or at least pull my data off. But I can't access anything in my Documents and Settings folder or the Windows/System32/ntoskrnl.exe file that I need to fix. I am thinking that it may be some kind of windows security thing rather than real corruption. Is this the case? Isn't there any way to get to these files and modify or copy them?
Someone please help me, I am so close to getting my data back, but still so far.

Again, I'll recap what happened to mine, because it may help you recover your data, at the very least.

My original OS that came with the computer was XP Pro. I had no problems with it and quite honestly liked it to an extent, but it had too many quirky conflicts with my Novell network at work so I chose to install 2000 Pro overtop of it. No problems there. Win2K pro installed just fine and I showed up as D Drive and my original XP showed up as C Drive (That was a little odd, but I sorta did that on purpose.

Anyway, I wanted to reinstall the XP Pro as a dual boot and installed System Commander (A multi-boot proggie, to do this). The XP install went off without a hitch, but like everyone else in this thread, when I went to boot Win2K Pro I had this dreaded ntoskrnl file problem just like everyone else. I think as noted earlier, at least my theory is, that the 2000 and XP NTFS are different versions. When XP is installed it looks for other NTFS partitions and attempts to rewrite them to it's own version. The workaround is to "hide" all other NTFS partitions. This way they don't get "rewritten". By default, SYstem Commander hides the NTFS partitions when using the OS wizard, but when I rebooted to start the install, I think I screwed up and as a result the 200 partition became "unhidden". Hence the "corruption".

After careful study of the solutions offered and the same attempts many have made to solve it, I tried a different approach. I created a fourth partition and did a clean install of Win2K being especially careful this time to "hide" the other NTFS partitions.

In theory this worked. It's a bit of a pain, but the end result is I can boot to both of the latter versions of Win2K and XP partitions. When I boot to Win2K (the new version) it is my C Drive and my old "corrupted" Win2K partition became my D Drive. Hence I was able to access all the files from there, but I could not see either XP partition.

However, when I boot to the new version of XP, My new XP partition is my C Drive and the old XP partition is my D Drive.

Bottom line is I was able to recover all files on the computer and not have to format it and start from scratch.

I'm not sure that's within the range of what most are willing to do, but I am living proof that it can be done.

Hope that helps the many who have been having this problem.

I read this three times, and it seems like it should be helpful. but I just don't understand a few things. I don't understand how you hid other installs. I also don't understand how you are able to see all your files while I am not. It seems pretty similar to what I did. Maybe it is because I don't understand what role System commander played in this for you.

System Commander runs on boot and keeps track of MBR and has options for partitioning, either manually or with a wizard, and OS installation wizard. The OS installation wizard automatically detects other NTFS partitions and hides them from the new OS (I guess comparing it to hidden files in DOS might be a good comparision). It's built in to the program, and trufully I'm not certain how it's done. (It can also be done manually in the partitioning portion. As far as seeing the files? Not sure there either. Perhaps it's because I used the same administrator password for all OS installs? I don't know. Hopefully taking ownership of the files will do it for you.

Unfortunately I could not read anything off the drives today. I ran powermax which is a Maxtor disk utility. it told me that both drives are bad. Yes, both drives that are part of my raid array went bad. I asked the guy if that was odd, and he asured me that it was very odd. But offered no explanation. So I am getting two new hard drives. and it turns otu that it was more than jsut a windows secutiry issues.
I guess that my problem has changed, does anyone know of any good data recovery software that will work on a raid 0 configuration?

I am having a problem when installing Win 2k3 Server. When my system reboots for the first time during the install process, I get a blue screen telling me that the Windows cannot find the proper installation. The install is an upgrade from Win 2K Server. When it reboots again after getting this message, I get an error saying that the NTOSKRNL.EXE file is either corrupt or doesn't exist.

Does anybody have any ideas as to why this is happening?

Ok,I've tried a couple of things with no use untill I found this topic but just when JrzyCrim gave me the answer the repair console gives me a message "access denied" to the windows folder,now what?My missing file is c:\windows\system32\config\system and even when I'm in DOS mode there is no such folder as the config folder,totally messed up,any help will be appreciated.

Patience my friend. This thread started May 10th and people are still answering questions about it. Trust me, when someone here thinks they can offer a good suggestion, they will post it. At the moment, I can't think of anything that hasn't already been suggested or I would have offered something. I've been kicking it around in the back of my mind for the last hour or so.

Hang in there. You've come to a great place for help.

Well I'm happy that there is at least one man alive here 🙂 ,I was worried that this thread is forgotten already,now I can wait more calmly 😉 .

This is a tough problem. My workstation at the office still has a Win2k partition with this problem, that I haven't fixed yet either, in spite of all the suggestions already made. Believe me, if I can figure it out, this thread will be the first place I come to to post the solution.

Ok,I've tried a couple of things with no use untill I found this topic but just when JrzyCrim gave me the answer the repair console gives me a message "access denied" to the windows folder,now what?My missing file is c:\windows\system32\config\system and even when I'm in DOS mode there is no such folder as the config folder,totally messed up,any help will be appreciated.

Other people have had access problems from within the recovery console. I still haven't found a solution for that. Normally after logging on to the RC, you should already be in the %systemroot% (Windows) directory. In fact, the only parts of the system partion that you are allowed to access are the Windows directory and all of it's sub directories. This shouldn't be a problem since the file you are trying to replace resides inside of Windows.

If you are using NTFS partitions you will not be able to access them from DOS. Unless you are talking about Safe mode with Command Prompt. I'm assuming you can't boot into safe mode. If the config folder is really missng, then that is 'totally messed up'. There are several important system files that are located there. Try hitting F8 at the beginning of the boot sequence. When the menu comes up, select Last known good configuration. That may replace those missing files. Beyond trying a repair install or clean install, I don't have any other solutions.

What type of Hard Drive do you have? If you are using a SATA drive, you might need to load the SATA drivers before going to the recovery console. You are offered the option of hitting F6 to install the drivers when booting from the Windows CD.

Well the strange thing is that I'm using FAT partitions and still the folder config doesn't want to show up,it's saying "invalid folder" and the last time I accessed it from the repairing console!Well,my biggest worry is to reinstall the windows without erasing my current applications and settings but I guess I found the answer(at least I think so 🙂 ).In the C: directory(or where the windows folder is)there is a folder named "i386",in dos mode you should enter the following command where you're in the "i386" folder "winnt32 /unattend" and that should reinstall windows and save the current applications and settings of your system((but I guess that will work only with FAT partitions because DOS doesn't recognize the NTFS ones),I'm not sure that this will work 100% but I guess I don't have any other choice(now I'm copying the "i386" folder from the windows xp disc to the hards drive because I don't know how but it's erased from the C: drive).Try it ATNO/TW,who knows,maybe it will work and thanks for the help anyway JrzyCrim(if not now,the next time I'll be ready for my system crash thanks to you 😉 ).

Winn32.exe is a Windows 32 bit program. That cannot be executed from dos. Winnt32 /unattend is used for upgrading an OS or Repairing from within Windows itself. That I386 folder isn't supposed to be on the C: drive. It's on the XP CD for setup.

You can do a repair install with the XP CD. No need to copy I386 to your harddrive.

Yes,now I see it the hard way 🙂 ,about 3 hours waiting for the stupid folder to copy and what!Nothing!Oh well,what can I do,and I can't repair my windows with the win xp disc because the repair option is unavailable,now what?

If you run install and select to install it overtop of the existing OS, it should repair all the missing entries. Your files and other directories should remain intact, however, you may find that you will have to reinstall some or all of your programs. Depends on how much was missing from your Windows directory. If you reinstall to the same directory the program was originally installed, you should find a lot of the original configurations will still be there. At least that is what I experienced when I did this with Win2K. The only little quirk is that you'll probably see two instances of XP to choose from when you boot. The "good" default one will the one that is auto-selected on top.

I'm sick of everything!Everything I try fails and I'm been trying to save my system without having a preinstall but I guess this is now impossible.Now what will happen if instead of the "repair" option I hit the "Install" option,at least somethings will be saved right?I don't know,please answer me soon caus' my fingers are getting naughty 😈 .

Thanks a million ATNO/TW(but I guess this means that the my documents section will also be doomed,oh well,I don't care anymore ❗ I'll save them through DOS),goodluck all(don't pay so much attention to such an idiotic thing like me!).

Your old profile will still remain under documents and settings. You can copy the files from the old profile to the new for those and favorites and you should be fine.

stumbled across this site whilst googling for an answer to this problem. As I corrected the fault I thought I'd post a reply as this thread seems quite recent. someone may find this useful (or not )!

setup : using partition magic 7.0 on win2k

I have a live win2k fat32 partition which is number 3 (i see it as hda3 on linux not so sure how its represented in windows) and a hidden ntfs xp partition which is number 2 (hda2)

what i was up to:
using partition magic I run a move command to shove this ntfs partition up to the far end of the disk so I get some more space for the fat32 partition. this works successfully. I reboot and get a <windows root>system32\ntoskrnl.exe error. Oops not good !!

how I fixed it:
Now I 've not changed anything on the live system and it looks like windows can't seem to find this file. so i read up on how windows sorts outs it paths on start up and it turns out its held in a file called boot.ini in the root of C: I use knoppix to boot in off cd and look at this (/begin rant/ an aside here, how do people manage to get anything done with that dreadful windows recovery console thing ? it turns out you can't even edit files with it. even if you've never touched linux before I recomend knoppix as its competely gui so you never have to touch the command line if you don't want to /end rant/). windows detects which partition its going to try and boot from the line multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3) in my case the live partition is 3 hence the partition(3) for some reason this got changed to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2) either by windows or partition magic. changing the number back to three brought my system straight back online.

hope this is of some help or even interest.

regards

Chris

Crap -- I keep forgetting about that. Now that you bring it up, I remember my teacher even had us go though an exercise to change boot.ini to do just that. But your method of access via Knoppix is much appreciated! Great post. I'm sure that will help others. And ditto your comments about R Console -- what a joke!

Great post Anonymous_coward.

I don't much like the RC either but usally that's the only thing people have available at the time.

Knoppix and BartPE are both great tools for recovery and repair.

The only disadvantage with BartPE is that you can only build it from an original XP or 2003 CD. That leaves out the 2000 users. You don't have to download a large ISO however.

Hi thanks for the feedback. One last followup post on this and then I promise I'll stop !

I today had to change the hidden primary ntfs partition to an extended logical partition because i wanted to see the data on it.
When I rebooted, Wham ! I got the same error. this was due to either partition magic 7.0 or windows renumbering the partitions so what parition number 3 is now partition number 2 and not bothering to update the boot.ini file. Interestingly I did'nt notice the error as Partition magic does not list the partition numbers. QTParted (Its a bit like partition magic on windows if you hav'nt seen it before) on knoppix however does so it was relatively easy to spot. another boot.ini edit later and I'm away.

I don't know if any of you windows users out there have a programme that does list them, it would be useful for checking before you reboot after doing some work, anyone know of one ?

So to summarize. I think a good plan of action is... If you have moved any partitions or performed any partition work or installed a new os to dual boot your machine and you get the
<windows root>system32\ntoskrnl.exe error. the first thing to do is check that the partition number in the boot.ini file lines up with the actual partition number on the hard drive as they seem quite susceptable to change.

Regards

Chris

Win2K instead of XP. Same message when booting as far as the ntoskrnl.exe is concerned.

I boot using the Win2k cd, choose repair, it tells me it can't find a hard drive! CMOS sees the drive fine.

HELP!!??

I'll keep searching and reading, hoping to get a clue as to what to do here though! 🙂

stumbled across this site whilst googling for an answer to this problem. As I corrected the fault I thought I'd post a reply as this thread seems quite recent. someone may find this useful (or not )!

setup : using partition magic 7.0 on win2k

I have a live win2k fat32 partition which is number 3 (i see it as hda3 on linux not so sure how its represented in windows) and a hidden ntfs xp partition which is number 2 (hda2)

what i was up to:
using partition magic I run a move command to shove this ntfs partition up to the far end of the disk so I get some more space for the fat32 partition. this works successfully. I reboot and get a <windows root>system32\ntoskrnl.exe error. Oops not good !!

how I fixed it:
Now I 've not changed anything on the live system and it looks like windows can't seem to find this file. so i read up on how windows sorts outs it paths on start up and it turns out its held in a file called boot.ini in the root of C: I use knoppix to boot in off cd and look at this (/begin rant/ an aside here, how do people manage to get anything done with that dreadful windows recovery console thing ? it turns out you can't even edit files with it. even if you've never touched linux before I recomend knoppix as its competely gui so you never have to touch the command line if you don't want to /end rant/). windows detects which partition its going to try and boot from the line multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3) in my case the live partition is 3 hence the partition(3) for some reason this got changed to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2) either by windows or partition magic. changing the number back to three brought my system straight back online.

hope this is of some help or even interest.

regards

Chris

Sleap -- reread the above from anonymous coward. I think that's about as close as anyone has gotten to the underlying cause of the problem.

Well... figured I'd post this, just as an aside for everyone.

Decided I'd harken back to my days of MFM drives. I smacked it good and hard... 😉

Actually, it appears that the ntoskrnl message was coming because the drive wasn't spinning up quick enough for Windows to see it.

I'd downloaded NTFSreader, but couldn't see the drive of course. Anyway, on the next boot up, I just slammed my fist down on the top of the unit, heard the drive spin up, and voila... there it was! Something I noticed this time that I hadn't in the past, was that it hadn't seen either the primary or secondary drives prior... this time it did.

Anyway, pc is now booted and running. Couple of things I'm going to check.. first off, connection of IDE cable to drive(s) and motherboard. Could be that they're loose enough that when I smacked it, they made good enough connection to boot.

Second is, if the cables aren't loose, then it's time to get the drive imaged, and replaced.

Thanks!
Shawn

Decided I'd harken back to my days of MFM drives. I smacked it good and hard... 😉

Actually, it appears that the ntoskrnl message was coming because the drive wasn't spinning up quick enough for Windows to see it.

I'd downloaded NTFSreader, but couldn't see the drive of course. Anyway, on the next boot up, I just slammed my fist down on the top of the unit, heard the drive spin up, and voila... there it was! Something I noticed this time that I hadn't in the past, was that it hadn't seen either the primary or secondary drives prior... this time it did.

*lol Thanks for the feedback. Interesting solution...

I don't believe there is one underlying cause. There are a number of different problems which will result in the ntoskrnl error.

Anonymous_coward problem arose as a direct result of moving partitions around. The boot.ini is certainly one place to look for trouble, especially if you are using multiple operating systems or have been modifying partitions, but it's not the only cause.

I had this problem a while back and it was due to a corrupt file. It happened spontaneously. I don't have more than 1 OS and I hadn't fooled with any partitions. I posted the method I used to correct the problem. It's helped a couple of people but it's only one solution for one cause.

I suspect a system with virus troubles can cause this if ntoskrnl.exe becomes infected. Had one poster that was able to fix the ntoskrnl.exe error only to have a problem with another file, and then another file.

I'm sure there are other reasons...

hey wassup

i tried the

"Code:

cd c:\windows\system32

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:

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

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

but it kept saying that it couldn't find the file after <copy "..\driver cache\i386\ntoskrnl.exe" >

I don't know how successful the following technique will be but it might work in some cases:

Based on a tip I posted in another thread, OS choices menu, I wanted to see If I could make a floppy that would boot the system into safe mode. I did have success. In fact, putting my money where my mouth is, I deleted my boot.ini and ntoskrnl.exe from my system partition and successfully booted my system from the floppy. Placing the necessary files plus a modified boot.ini, the system was able to use the ntkrnlpa.exe to boot into safe mode instead of a missing/corrupt ntoskrnl file.

1) From a working 2k/XP system, format a floppy disk. It needs to be formatted from within windows. Insert disk into drive, right-click on the floppy drive, select format. Leave "create a msdos startup disk" unchecked.

2) From the root of the system partition, copy these files to the floppy disk: ntdetect.com, ntldr. These files are hidden so you will need to disable 'Hide protected operating system files': Go to Folder Options > View and uncheck the appropriate option.

You can also copy them via the command prompt:

xcopy /H c:\ntdetect.com a:\

3) Create an new text file on the floppy which will be saved as boot.ini. Place the following code in the file:

[boot loader]  
timeout=5  
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS  
[operating systems]  
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /safeboot:minimal(alternateshell) /bootlog /kernel=ntkrnlpa.exe /noguiboot

Usually the system partition is the first partition. If not, then you will need to modify both instances of partition(1) to correspond to your particular needs. If you don't know which partition is the correct one, just try 1, then 2, etc until you are able to boot.

Here's a link that explains the boot.ini in some detail:
https://techgenix.com/PurposeoftheBOOT.INIFile Thank you ATNO.

You may need to modify other aspects if you have a SCSI drive or are using another IDE chain.

When saving from notepad, wrap the filename in quotes to ensure that it doesn't get saved as boot.ini.txt.

Hopefully you will find yourself in safe mode with a command prompt. From there you can try to fix the problem; correcting boot.ini errors, replacing the ntoskrnl file, running chkdsk, etc.

It might be a good idea to make this disk now in case of future problems.

As I said before, I don't know how successful this will be. It certainly won't work for every case: Hardware failure or other causes where the ntoskrnl error is just a symptom. I plan to do more testing and compile a help text containing the different methods of recovery.

For the floppy to work, you need to set the floppy drive as the first boot device in the bios. This varies from system to system so I can't give specific instructions on how to do this. A simple web search will most likely yield useful instructions.

I would also appreciate others who want to test this on various Operating Systems: 2000, XP, 2003. No need to delete any of the above mentioned files. 🙂 . I'm just crazy. All that would need to be done is the creation of the floppy disk and a reboot of the system with the floppy.

Man, that's excellent Jim! I'll test this out on mine on Friday and report back.

Added tip on Notepad "save file as" (I believe I already posted this in the Windows Tips thread).

When you save a file in Notepad, the little dropdown box for file type always defaults to .txt and this will by default add the .txt extension to the file unless you use the quotes workaround that Jim posted.

If you expand the dropdown menu you'll see the other selection option is "All Files" If you select that option, then you can save a file in any format without the concern about the truncated .txt extension being automatically added. This is great for working with htm, HTML, nfo, ini, tpl, etc files and it doesn't require the quotes.

I appreciate that ATNO. Thanks for the additional notepad tip. I really need to go through all the tips sometimes.

Here's some additional switches that can be used in the boot.ini file:

https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000492.htm

One that caught my interest was /bootlog. A log will be created of the boot process and saved as ntbtlog.txt in %systemroot% (usually \Windows). Could be useful for troubleshooting purposes.

I'm going to see if it works with Safe mode without the command prompt and maybe even normal startup. Probably not a good idea to try a normal boot if you are having trouble. I'll do it anyway just to satisfy my curiosity.

It seemed to work correctly in Safemode with and without the command prompt:

Safe Mode:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /safeboot:minimal /SOS /bootlog /kernel=ntkrnlpa.exe /noguiboot

Safe Mode with Command Prompt:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /safeboot:minimal(alternateshell) /sos /bootlog /kernel=ntkrnlpa.exe /noguiboot

Of course, you will need to edit the disk and parition info applicable to your system.

Hi,

I was having the same problem with the ntoskrnl.exe (windows would not boot and said that this file was corrupted or missing). I couldn't figure out why this happened, but suspected that it was due to the fact that I just installed the motherboard drivers.

To make a long story short, one of the posters in this thread mentionned that they were having problems with the windows 2000 boot.ini file. Well, I just happened to have edited this file also and so I thought that maybe this is the reason why ntoskrnl.exe was screwed up... Anyway, I went into the recovery console, deleted the boot.ini file (windows can boot without it) and restarted my computer.

By miracle, the problem was solved 🙂

I just thought that I'd register and post this in case others had the same problem. Cheers!

Well, I just happened to have edited this file also and so I thought that maybe this is the reason why ntoskrnl.exe was screwed up... Anyway, I went into the recovery console, deleted the boot.ini file (windows can boot without it) and restarted my computer.

By miracle, the problem was solved 🙂

I just thought that I'd register and post this in case others had the same problem. Cheers!

Welcome to Ozzu and thanks for your post.

That's strange. Normally Windows will not boot with out this file. Trying this on my XP Pro system, I received two errors:

Invalid Boot.ini flashed on the screen then:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.

One of my computers is having the corrupted ntoskrnl.exe problem also...

NTFS, Windows XP pro, no extra partitions

The HDD makes inconsistent sounds. It will go, stop, go, stop, then pause ---4 short bursts of activity with each being a series of a dozen or so clicks. I'm currently still trying the recovery console. I found that I cannot use the LOGON command. Therefore I cannot replacentoskrnl.exe using the recovery console...

Chkdsk is at 34% after 2 hours. I already ordered a new HDD. 😢

There we go, 100%... "The volume seems to contain one or more unrecoverable problems"

Let me start out by saying you guys are, by far, the most thorough group of computer guru's I've encountered 🤣 . Now that the shameless brown nosing is over, let me explain my problem.

I'm dealing with a home built machine which in my opinion just needs to be dropped off a high building (obviously, it's not my computer, it's my roommates). It's running Windows 2000 and has 3 drives (all under 4 gb) and is set up with the 3 HDDs on c:\, d:\, and f:\, with the CD drive on e:. I followed JrzyCrim's recomendation from back in March on using the recovery console and copying ntoskrnl.exe but for some reason am having trouble. Best I can tell, it might be that I don't know how all the drives are organized. I'm not totally computer stupid, but I'm not the 'puter genius most of you guys are.

My roommate's Dad (out of town) plans to get her a newer computer, but at this point we just need to be able to resurrect it enough to pull some files off of it. This may seem like an incredibly stupid question, but I just want some validation... if I reinstall Win 2K, without formatting, will I lose what's already on the drives? I'm even willing to give a try for fixing the ntoskrnl problem, but it seems like my situation is still a little bit different that the other lucky souls who have been successful.

I just really don't want to spend all sorts of time on it, especially since it's about to be replaced. Thanks in advance for the advice!

Hi, welcome to Ozzu!

This ntoskrnl problem is a tricky one. In answer to your question, you can do a 'repair install' of windows 2000.

A repair install will leave your programs and data intact. Only windows updates will need to be applied again. In your case, this probably won't be a problem since you are planning to replace the system.

Follow the instructions at the above link.

Before you attempt that, you might consider making a floppy disk as outlined in previous posts; if you have access to another Win 2000 machine. Pretty simple really and should take no time at all.

See this post

Got it fixed guys... THANKS!!!

Hi, and thanks for the welcome.

About the boot.ini file, well I guess that you do need it if you're running windows XP (I really don't know much about these things). For windows 2000 pro though, at least in my case, when this file is missing or has errors in it, I get a message that looks something like this: "invalid, or missing, boot.ini... booting from c:\winnt\ instead."

Anyway, my ntoskrnl.exe problem came up after I really messed up the boot.ini (I'm supposing that I must of done something very wrong!). I didn't know how to fix the file so I just deleted it and then I could boot without any problems (well, I do get that "booting from c:\winnt\ instead" message", but it doesn't do anything bad).

I suppose that all of this might be a coincidence, but given the strong correlation between my messing up boot.ini, the ntoskrnl.exe problem, and the fixing of this problem by deleting the boot.ini file, it sure looks like boot.ini was the culprit for me.

Just an idea, but maybe if you have the same type of problem in winXP, you can try to edit boot.ini to fix it, or even replace it with a good version...

Cheers!

what had happened b4 w/ me was w/ Fedora Core Test 1 on a dual boot system.....When I installed Suse 9.1 this time I had the exact same problem. I listened to the advice and got a hold of my boot.ini thru Suse. I got it onto a floppy and just used the recovery console to copy it over the other boot.ini. Apparently Linux just loves to change the partition windows thinks it is in. Anyway, much thanks to all you guys. You know your stuff.

Much obliged
cerberus561 😁

One of my computers is having the corrupted ntoskrnl.exe problem also...

NTFS, Windows XP pro, no extra partitions

The HDD makes inconsistent sounds. It will go, stop, go, stop, then pause ---4 short bursts of activity with each being a series of a dozen or so clicks. I'm currently still trying the recovery console. I found that I cannot use the LOGON command. Therefore I cannot replacentoskrnl.exe using the recovery console...

Chkdsk is at 34% after 2 hours. I already ordered a new HDD. 😢

There we go, 100%... "The volume seems to contain one or more unrecoverable problems"

I just replaced a hard drive in a friend's machine with the similar problem. I narrowed the "clicking" sounds down to the hard drive turning on and off. It seemed like it had an issue with powering up. Then it also had a problem (with XP where it would almost get to a login screen and then reboot) I also encountered multiple unrecoverable errors using chkdsk and determined there were too many bad sectors on the drive to allow it to live. Replaced the drive and all is well.

Oooo - kay

I have the same problem as everyone else here, with the missing file etcetcetc. Have read through all the replies, and they dont work. Alas, i think my problem is a mite more serious than most, for the reasons i shall detail below....

Did a boot-level defrag as on my primary windows partition, as it was horrendously messed up. After the defrag had finished shunting the files around, I get the error message. I'm thinking that its put them in a secret place, then forgotten exactly where...

The boot.ini file looks ok, but heres the kicker:

The winnt directory (I'm on win 2000) has vanished. gone without a trace, leaving just a 288k file called winnt in its place.

Now i reckon this means that the partition tables might be a bit messed up, either that or the master boot record, as thats pretty much the only thingI havent tried.

So - suggestions for how to recover the winnt dir ?

Further info : When loading up the recovery console, it doesn't ask me to log into win2000, so i cant move files, copy files, do anything like that.

Current best guess is to copy all the files i need over to another drive as a backup, then try restoring the mbr - any ideas as to why i should/shouldnt do this ?

Cheers all !!!!

I am having the same problem, i was browsing around looking for solutions and found this forum.

I have a WD 80gig and am using XP Home. I used a WD disk diagnostic and i zeroed everything on my HD. I used the regular NTFS format, it hit 100%, and then it gave me the error message: cannot format on petition, there may be a disk damage, etc. I have been having computer troubles for the last month, i try formatting and it never works, i have to use the quick NTFS format, and it only works for about 1-2 weeks, and then craps out again. I am going to go pick up XP Pro tomorrow (college discount), and try formatting with that cd instead.

I am not that experienced with computers, so can anyone who has found a solution with this please post in layman's terms what they did? thanks.

Fixed it...

I put the drive in another working win2k machine, and on boot it ran through the diskcheck prog. After that there were two directories called found.000 and found.001 or something like that - these were the winnt dirs and system32 dirs. I copied then renamed them accordingly and put them in the right place, booted up the broken machine and it was fine.

Chkdsk might do this in the recovery console, don't know.

Basically i think it re-wrote the NTFS data so that it was all good.
Also - don't know if i needed to rename the folders and move them, or whether the re-write would link the boot files to the new dirs, but i thought it prudent whilst the option was easily available.

Best of luck with everyone else having this problem - i think mine was more a symptom of a different problem.

Hey that's great and thanks for detailing the solution. This thread appears to be becoming more valuable and informative daily. Cheers.

Hello,

About a week ago, I bought a new Maxtor IDE HDD(40GB) , to use as a backup on my older Maxtor IDE HDD(20GB). This I thought would be my cheap backup system (only 57 euro). But it became a nightmare.

When i connected the new disk as slave, it was not recognized by my older one. After a couple of different wiring like connectors on the cable switching, I got the famous 'ntoskrnl.exe message.
I use W2K Professional, so the HDD was NTFS format. I found this site and tried everything I more or less understood (being not so much into PCs).
I tried:
-Windows recovery tool: could not read the disk anymore
-used the new HDD as master and the broken one as slave. The slave showed up as F:-disk, but when I tried to access it, W2k asked to format the disk. Not a good idea...
-tried the maxtor diagnose tool: diagnose: disk broken, you get a knew one with error-code .... again it was no help to me.
-tried datarecoverytool 'easyrecovery' from Ontrack (trialversion)
started ok, but when it tried to read the first sectors it got stuck and didn't proceed.
-and many other suggestions.
I contacted a specialized company in datarecovery and it would cost me about 1300 euro (a bit more in USD)
I was about to pay this when a final googling brought me to http://www.pcinspector.de. More exactly their tool 'Pcinspector File Recovery'. A free download. And this tool was able to access my root . Some sectors were damaged, but most of them where ok and I could recover 95% of all my data.

I hope this is of any help. I, at least was happy to recover my data!
Ciao

Welcome to OZZU bartvb and thanks for the feedback.

Glad you were able to recover your data. I've used PC INSPECTOR myself and it's a very good tool considering it's free.

Of all the dumb luck !!

My 8Gb drive just died - started clicking, so i started to transfer files across, then the whole system went down, so I've unplugged it until i have a bit more energy and more patience

I think most of the files are backed up or irrelevant though, so its no biggie, just irritating !

Sorry to hear that. Hope you can recover everything you need.

I am running Windows XP on a Dell 1 ghz laptop. I am getting the same error as everyone else.

ntoskrnl.exe is corrupted...etc

I can not boot up in safe mode. I can't boot up with my XP recovery disk. What are my options? Right now I think I'll have to lose everything and replace the HD. Does anybody have any ideas?

Is this a new error, it seems that there are several people getting it recently.

Thank you!

😱 I don't think anyone has mentioned this problem yet, but here is my problem. I am running Win 2000 and it won't even start up. After I turn it on, it gets stuck in this blue screen and this is what it says exactly:

Address 8042DEF4 base at 80400000, Date Stamp 4047db83 - ntoskrnl.exe
STOP: 0x0000000A (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x8042DEF4)IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

I am clueless about this. I have read some of the previous posts, but this doesn't seem to be the same problem. Thanks for any help!

😠 ❓ ok, i just started having this problem, and when i put my Win XP cd in the cd drive and try to use the recovery console, it says that file \i386\ntkcnlmp.exe can not be loaded... does this mean that i will have to get a new cd? or is there a way to fix it? ❓ 😠

hi people

i have a similar problem. i boot into windows without problem. while browsing the internet and running applications suddenly i come across an error where a blue screen comes up with a message "beginning of physical dump" it shows error on file ntoskrnl.exe. and the system reboots.

any solutions??

need help. i use a compaq presario 1500T.

thx

always screwed 😈 😈 ❓ 😤

I am having the same problem as described above, but when I try to expand
the sp1.cab file to the system32 directory I get:

No files matching 'c:\windows\system32' in sp1.cab

The same happens if I try to expand sp2.cab.
ntoskrnl.exe is in the system32 directory. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Rick

With no warning my notebook decided to go south for the winter by simply not powering on. The fan, power light and charge light appear and depressing the caps or numlock key results in activation but thats about it. If you continue to power on and off eventually it will boot. It will not boot from A: or C: which prevents running repair. This condition has existed for two days and I am finally having time to work on it. The subject message appeared tonight and I was directed to this site via google. Looks like a great sight so I joined up and found your posting and wonder if you have any other suggestions?

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

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.

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..

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.
Now of course.. the little kiddies need not downloading the iso and then setting the administrator 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

chkdsk /r

and seeing if that fixes anything. Hope this helps! 🙂

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.

😢

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.

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:

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):

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

hopefully you get it working. good luck.

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?

well if you have a windows XP disk, then you don't 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 it'd be c:\windows\system32

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.

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?

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

I have the exact same issue as described above except mine's with 2000 not XP. I have successfully completed several of the repair steps as described above but I have one glaring obstical.
I'm at the REPAIR CONSOLE C:/> prompt and and the instructions say,
"CD Windows" (or in my case WINNT) I try and get "access denied".

FURTHER: I have copied the file: ntoskrnl.exe from this (ok) machine to a CDRW and attempted on the (down) mahine, to copy it (cd drive is I)
I:/> copy ntoskrnl.exe c:\winnt\system32 [enter]
access is denied
I have the administrator user name (changed) and password.
so how do I get the rights?

I have a similar thing when I boot my system.

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows 2000 root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please reinstall a copy of the above file.

I was able to instal 2k pro on another partician. I got online, found this forum etc. (very cool and informative forums here i must say!) I fixed my boot.ini so I could dual boot, replaced my hal.dll, ntoskrnl.exe, and ntldr files, and still get the same message every time. so after my last boot up, I noticed something -

the part where it says '<windows 2000 root>' in the message on the black screen (I am assuming this refering to the root windows folder where the OS is at) my actual folder isnt named that. it is just named WINDOWS. so like the message should actually read <WINDOWS root>, but it does not.. it took me a while to notice that little tidbit.

so basically I can only assume that somewhere along the path of how windows loads, the folder reference to the ntoskrnl.exe has been altered, and thus the system is trying to load the ntoskrnl.exe from a folder which does not exist, and thus, the error.

so, should I rename my folder to match the message on the screen? or is there some file I missed that needs replacing? i can only guess for the most part, if I rename the folder, it will only screw up a poo pile of other things, so I didn't want to attempt that, at least till someone reads this and hopefully has a solution.....

your assistance is MOST APPRECIATED, as I have over 5 years of stuff installed on my original windows instal, and it would just plain suck totally rotten eggs with poop on em if I have to loose it all to Fdisk...
😟

well, I had the same error and I fixed it using CHKDSK on my UBCD cd. You can download it Here => http://www.ubcd4win.com/.

It is good for many other things too! So keep it!

I did exactly like what U wrote and it worked but then when I restart my comp the same problem came back.

I reinstall my windows and guess what after installing SP-2 all of a sudden this problem came back. I did your suggestion again and it didn't seem to work 😟

How should I tackle this problem ? any suggestion ?

i have had the same thing happen. i did a defrag overnight on friday. saturday morning it said i was finished, and that there were some fragged files that could not be defragged. i am running windows xp pro SP 2 btw. the image did not look very different. so i resumed playing civilization 4 and it started to run a little choppy. sometimes the game will just do this so i closed the application and re-ran it. it crashed so i decided to reboot. the reason i'm saying all of this will become evident..

so then i get the classic error that all of us on this thread seem to be getting. the old ntoskrnl.exe. cant get in. i send it to the PC shop saturday and the guy has called me today saying that their recovery rig cant even run the windows repair on it (i would have done it myself but my windows xp cd is across the state) because it wont recognize it as a partition with windows. the only option it will offer is to format. so now they are trying to run checkdisk on it because it is only showing up as a 4 meg (vs the 120 gig, less-than-a-year-old drive that it is) drive! and it is all returning 0s... so far. i am really pissed. someone please offer me some words of advice, or at least of comfort 😢

Have you run "sfc /scannow" ? If not insert your XP installation cd and type that command at the command prompt.

i cant. i dont have the windows xp cd, as stated in my post.

they have tried to use windows system recover though, using up-to-date oem versions of windows xp w/ service pak 2 i think.

What did they get using checkdisk ? If they are unsuccessful using system recovery it may be a problem with the disk itself.

i am convinced that it is the disc. they ran surface scans, even in linux...a binary image returned almost all 0's. it had 4 megs of data according to linux. so. it's DOA. i'm sad. but i am getting a replacement from maxtor cause it is still under warranty. i just wish i could get my system back in commission before thanksgiving break. i must wait for my dad to ship his windows xp cd...

the guys at the computer shop even let me borrow their windows xp service pack 2 cd so i could get started, but their's is OEM, and my product auth code is retail...so they do aren't compatible, sadly. oh postal service....please move swiftly!

do u have access to the disk itself? because if so, the disk contains a text file called unattend.txt in the i386 folder. open this file and scroll down to the bottom. it will say: ProductKey = "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX...". use this product key during installation and you will be able to fully install. however, u wont be able to activate but since u have an xp copy on the way u dont need to because when that gets to u you can activate your copy using that cdkey
🙂

Hi everyone,

I came across this thread while researching my corrupt/absent NTOSKRNL.EXE problem on the internet. My problem is very similar to Netmon's problem (July/05).

I can get into the Windows XP recovery console no problem, but I just can't seem to expand NTOSKRNL.EX from the CD to my C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 directory. I kept getting the following error: "Unable to create file NTOSKRNL.EXE". The same thing happens when I try to expand NTKRNLMP.EX as NTOSKRNL.EXE.

I ran CHKDSK /r, which "...found and fixed one or more errors on the volume." I tried running BOOTCFG /rebuild, but I keep getting the following error:

"Error: failed to successfully scan disks for Windows installations. The error may be caused by a corrupt file system, which would prevent Bootcfg from successfully scanning. Use chkdsk to detect any disk errors."

I get this error no matter how many times I run CHKDSK /r.

I've tried a couple of manual edits of BOOT.INI, trying different partition numbers, etc. Nothing helped, so I put it back the way it originally was.

Now, when I look in my \SYSTEM32 directory using the repair console, NTOSKRNL.EXE has completely vanished. It was there when I first started, and I didn't delete it on purpose, unless CHKDSK did somehow.

I think a lot of my problems would be solved if I could just EXPAND that file (NTOSKRNL.EX_) from my Windows XP CD to my SYSTEM32 directory, but I can't! It's really frustrating... Does anyone else have any experience or advice regarding this? I've spent the whole weekend trying to get my computer resuscitated, and I'm starting to worry that I'll have to reinstall everything and lose important files!

Any and all advice is appreciated! Thanks!
A. Fraser

Hi Everyone,

I took the time to read and skim through all 9 pages of the postings on this thread and found that my error is somewhat unique to what everyone else is experiencing.

I'm running WIN2K. I'm not sure if it's Pro or not. Does it matter? I know it's not server or workstation. Anyway, I hadn't had the computer online since May, and just recently put it back online and almost immediately got a virus before i could even update my virus files and download windows security updates. It would freeze after i entered my login and password into windows. I got around it by just changing the password. I tried running the virus scan and it would freeze when scanning this particular directory. I don't remember which it was, but i seem to think it was in the system32 folder somewhere. So i just ran the virus check on every other directory, and it found nothing, but continued ot lock up if i went to a full system scan. So i took my computer back off the internet and now about 2 weeks later of little to no trouble with it, i ran into another problem:

Out of nowhere, my computer locked up in windows and i rebooted and now get the error everyone here's been talking about:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows 2000 root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please reinstall a copy of the above file.

I don't have a windows 2K CD readily available, (though i can have my brother mail me his) so i downloaded off a website the 4 floppy boot disks so that i could at least run setup of windows.

This is the link I got the boot disks from:

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

From there, i tried JrzyCrim's instructions for Recovery Console, but ran into a problem.

I followed the instructions at the following link:

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm

But at the final blue screen, when i hit C to enter recovery console, instead of it asking me which windows 2000 installation i would like to login to, and then asking for the administrator password, it just takes me to a command prompt directly. The prompt it takes me to is C:>, not C:\WINNT>.

I type DIR, and see the directory WINNT. I type "cd WINNT" and i get

"The system cannot find the file or directory specified"

I try JrzyCrim's code: "cd c:\winnt\system32", it says

"The system cannot find the file or directory specified"

When i try: cd "c:\winnt\driver cache\i386", i get the same thing.

But when i type "cd NVIDIA", (another directory I see in C:) it says "Access Denied", which i think it should.

So then i tried a repair installation, thinking it wouldn't be a big deal to lose the windows updates, etc. So i made a ERD from my dad's laptop which runs WIN2K Pro. I don't know if any other aspect of windows is the same, other than they're both 2K. And i tried a fast repair and a manual repair using the ERD and without using the ERD. (so 4 different tries). The steps i followed were at this link:

http://www.windows2000.windowsreinstall.com/

Each try ended with the same result. After i inserted the ERD, and pressed enter, or after i said i did not have an ERD, instead of saying it found windows 2000 in the following folder, it said

Setup cannot create the folder
\WINNT
Setup cannot continue until the folder is created
Press To Retry, Press ENTER
To quit Setup, Press F3

When i press enter, it does nothing, and i have to restart the setup, which takes me right back to where i started.

So it seems not to be seeing the entire directory WINNT. Do i need the actual Windows 2K CD to do a repair installation? Because as stated, I'm just using 4 floppy boot disks to get into windows setup.

I'm quite lost on what to do. Any help would be appreciated. And thank you in advance for your time and effort.

~Rick

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:

cd c:\windows\system32 

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:

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

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.

Hi I have been reading this msg board and am having a similar problem.
I had the usual (by the sounds of everyones problems) problem of a corrupt or missing ntoskrnl file. I cured that by using the recovery console on the XP install disk and expanding the file from the cd to C:

However here is the rub on restarting XP kept rebooting on start up so I went into the repair a windows setup and now I get the following error

Setup cannot create the folder \WINDOWS\driver Cache i386
setup cannot continue until the folder is created

can anyone help please.

Hi, all -

I'm having pretty much the same symptoms as many others who have posted in this topic - the dreaded "ntoskrnl.exe is missing" error, but I got to the problem from a different direction. Here's my situation:

System: multi-boot, with 3 OSes: Win98, Win2kPro, RH Linux 7.3. Drive is partitioned strangely, but for all intents and purposes Win2k is on the D: drive, which the "Recovery Console" command MAP reports to be partition #4. Windows 2000 has been working just fine for years, until I decided to mess with it this afternoon and I really seem to have screwed it up badly.

What I tried to do: System is desperately low on disk space, especially on D:, the system drive. Silly me - I thought maybe I could clear up some space by reducing the size of the dllcache folder, so I set it to 50MB through the registry and then attempted to purge the old contents using the command "sfc /purgecache". BIG mistake.

What it did: It wanted to reinstall a bunch of files from the "SP4 CD", which doesn't exist and never has. I had upgraded to SP4 a long time ago, not from a CD, and did not keep the installer due to - you guessed it - low disk space. So I canceled sfc using its cancel button (I did NOT force-quit it in TaskManager).

Now I'm getting the ntoskrnl.exe missing error. But when I boot into Win98 on C:, I can check the D:\WINNT\System32\Config directory and the file ntoskrnl.exe is present and appears to be normal (it is not zero-length - about 1.6MB).

So far as I can tell, the BOOT.INI file does point at the correct drive ('Partition(4)'), but I've tried modifying it anyway (both on the HD and on a FD created as described several posts back) with no success. I'm at my wit's end here because it looks like all the necessary files are in the right places, and it still won't boot.

If you've read this far, thanks, and I hope someone can point out something else I can try. I really don't want to lose this installation.

This behavior can occur if any of the following conditions exist:

• The Default value in the [Boot Loader] section of the Boot.ini file is missing or invalid.
• Windows NT is not installed in the location specified in the Boot.ini file.
• For Microsoft Windows 2000, the Hal.dll file can be corrupted or missing.

If you have the emergency repair disk(ERD) you created boot from that and try modifying the boot.ini file.
Here is a sample and example:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/troubleshoot/windows-server/deployment/manually-edit-boot-file

Alright, hmmmm.....as I was reading that post my computer just restarted itself...no idea why. The power did not go out, that was just plain weird. Also, twice I've had this problem. The computer wouldn't start up. I believe this was after the storm. I found out later one of the times was cause a video driver? Even though I hadn't touched my drivers for a while and everything was always fine. Also, when I tried to start my computer during these times it made a very loud whining/humming noise immediately when I turned the power on. Very hard to describe. After I turned it off, after hearing that, and turned it back on. It did it again. So I tried it again, and it didn't do it.

I know its extremely vague, but any idea what might be the cause of this?

I too face a similar problem but peculiar in its very own nature. ok let me come to the point. i have windows xp pro installed in my comp. when i start my computer with keyboard connected i get weird noise. some buzz sound. windows fails to boot saying ntoskrnl.exe is missing. but when i start with the keyboard plugged out i'm able to go to the login screen. alas all my accounts are password protected so nothing doing. if i try to connect keyboard at this stage my mouse too freezes. i cant try repairing too. i need to modify the bios setting to boot from cd. which requires keyboard control. help me out...

Hi Everyone,

I was able to repair the ntoskrnl.exe problem. But now when it goes to the "Windos is starting" black screen with that white progress bar across the bottom, i get the problem,

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

Now i tried to follow the instructions jrsycrim had to fix it.

But when i tried the command

copy c:\windows\repair\system , and then press ENTER.

It said the file was not found. I looked in my repair folder and saw there were 2 files, for 0 bytes, which i think means it's empty. So i don't have that file. Is there someplace else i can copy that file over?

Also, when i try to do a repair installation, i get that blue screen "to set up windows 2000 now, press enter, then i do and agree to the license, then the next screen, it doesn't give me the option to do a repair install. It goes straight ot my partitions and asks where i want to install the new copy of windows. WHy don't i get the option to repair install?

Also, i have 2 paritions on this harddrive. One has windows on it and the other has all my important files. If i install a fresh copy of windows on the partiiton with the old version of windows, will i lose my info on the other partition?

your help is greatly appreciated.

Rick

Also, i have 2 paritions on this harddrive. One has windows on it and the other has all my important files. If i install a fresh copy of windows on the partiiton with the old version of windows, will i lose my info on the other partition?

No you will not. Windows will only install to the partition you specify and will leave the others intact.

Are you trying to repair Windows 2000 or XP? You have both mentioned in your post.

Hi guys,
I have exactly the same problem with the ntoskrnl.exe file, but when i follow your advice and try to do the process in the windows xp recovery console, I can't access the command prompt...

At the stage:
1: C:\ WINDOWS
"Which windows installation would you like to log onto?", when I type "1", it gets stuck there for ages and I can't do anything.

What should I do?
Please save me, and explain me in easy steps, cause I'm not a specialist with computers 😕
Thanks a lot!
Arno

Alright just built new comp and have gone in to install win xp pro. I get it all installed go to start up and get the ntoskrnl.exe corruption. I boot up windows again and try and do the repair file which has been said before, but on my setup menu it shows my C:partition1 ,

and if i want to setup windows press enter

create a partition press C

delete partition press D

I have deleted and reinstalled it several times and same error...what can i do?

later on i setup windows by pressing enter, then when it rebooted it, i was given the "read disk error press alt+ctl+del to reboot" so i did it and same thing read disk error. So then i deleted partition tried reformatting and ntoskernl.exe . I am going to try and do the long reformatting again to see if it works. Didn't the first time, but maybe this time it will. I have no way of getting to the RC...any other way of getting there, because it doesn't show up when i put in the windows xp pro cd and run it.

Alright i did the long reformatting and it worked, i had it running and all was jolly until after i was updating bios and installing things like anti virus etc. I go to do the restart and come up with a new problem "C0000221 ... ntdll.dll error. Now it just keeps looping when i try and reboot. I reformatted it twice with quick way and reinstalled windows, then when i try and to boot it up i get the same ntdll.dll error or config error. So for the last time i am going to run long reformat way and try it again. If it screws up I am sending back my three day old maxtor hard drive. Any other suggestions?

i guess i'm just not sure of the difference between "retaining all files and folders" yet at the same time "replace the version of windows" Just so we can communicate better, my operating system partition is my C: drive, and my important information i can't lose is on my D: drive. I don't need to keep any of the info on my C: drive....it can be formatted for all i care. But i'd guess that's where the virus resides. So maybe it'd be better if i formatted just the C: drive and then reinstalled windows? But if i do that, would that mean any programs (ie microsoft money, video games, etc) that i installed on the D: drive, wouldn't work anymore? I'd have to reinstall?

also, to answer your qeustion, i'm dealing with win 2k

More than likely yes. The registry entries made when those programs were installed would be erased once you installed Windows.

so you'd recommend i format that partition to eradicate the virus? or would the reinstall take care of the virus alone?

There are many ways to skin a virus without formatting.

But if that is the route you want to take, I would format vice the re-install, a.k.a. repair install.

Hi,

I'm having the same exact problem as the first poster, my ntoskrnl.exe is missing aswell. But the solutions that were given aren't working as easily as they were for him. When I try and cd to the system32 folder I keep getting the following error, "The path or file specified is not valid." And when I try expanding the ntoskrnl.ex_ I get this error too, "Access is denied."

Thanks.

Hello all,

Here's the problem, hope someone has some thoughts or guidance.....

Recently I bought a HP dv1000 which seemed to be running as it should for about the first six days. However after that when I turned it on it would show the initial HP graphic screen when powered up and then go black and start an audio alarm of a constant drone. To solve this I pressed the stop button on the media control (other buttons seem to have the same effect too) and the alarm would soon stop and the computer would return to it's normal start up process. It was around the same time that I noticed a strance thing happening with the number 5 key. The key would act as if constantly being pressed for no reason and cause the number 5 to scrawl across the screen when not pushed. It would happen on all applications to start up which required text, msn messenger, word docs etc. By pressing the media player stop button, the problem would seem to go away but often soon return.
My first thoughts were that it must be a bit of a faulty button but I did a bit of a test on it and it still requires the same amount of finger pressure on the keyboard to activate the button.
So with the strange audio alarm on the start up and the number 5 thing, I then decided to do a start up and let the audio alarm run for a while to figure itself out. After a minute or so it would sometimes say notskrnl exe. missing or corrupt. I am very amature when it comes to this sort of thing but I managed to locate thefile in the window32 I think it was so it wasn't missing, but possibly corrupt. I then attempted to replace the file which I think seemed to work but only for one start up.

So my questions are....

1. Do you think it is a faulty PC problem (I had only had it for six days however had used internet while running Norton AntiVirus and anti spyware)

2. Do you think the problem of the number five and the bad start up are related?

3. What are the sort of effects of a corrupt nostkrnl exe. everything else seems to be running fine

I hope someone out there can help. If you need any further info let me know.

Thanks

Well, I first of all apologize for resurrecting an old topic but I am sorely in need of help here. I also am suffering from the missing root\system32\ntoskrnl.exe file. My issue however is when I go in to repair it with the recovery console, I immediately get this error:

"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.

Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.

Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3."

This is a brand new computer that was built by a friend only a few days ago. It has run fine and restarted tons of times in the past 2 days while I installed new software. Is the problem simply that my hard drive is nuked? When I press tab to key into the user window during start up it gives me a notice saying the number of disks is not adequate to create a raid however at the bottom it lists:

Serial_ch0 Mastere WDC WD800JD-00LS SATS 74.53 Gb Hdd

Does this mean it still registers it and that it isn't dead or am I just getting my hopes up as I fumble around in various options during start up. I don't know very much about the side of building computers or fixing problems like these but if given any instructions that might help I should be able to follow them. I really hope the hard drive isn't dead after only two days of use. I moved the computer before I got this problem and I hope I didn't mes up the hard drive by setting it down too sharply. I set it down a little rough but nothing more than what would be expected from normal travel. I even went in and disconnected and reconnected all the cables onnected to the hard drive but to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Well well..
it seems like one of my friends have the exact same problem.
( regarding the <Windows Root>\ System32\Ntoskrnl.exe error )

The only thing though...
His computer is an OEM ( manufactured by E-machines)
And the only CD that came with it is a Restore CD.
The only thing it will do is.. reformat his Hard Drive and then install Windows XP: Home Edition.

So my question is that..
If I lend him my Windows XP: Professional CD.. could I then use the Recovery thing on there on his computer?

Or.. would a retail Windows XP: Home Edition CD work?

Any help about this would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Note: As of right now, I don't know if he has Service Pack 2 installed or not.

😢

So my question is that..
If I lend him my Windows XP: Professional CD.. could I then use the Recovery thing on there on his computer?

Or.. would a retail Windows XP: Home Edition CD work?

yes.

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

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

Will need to change if you have XP SP2 or if you created your own SP2 install disk from your SP1 disk and windows downloads...

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

expand sp2.cab -F:ntoskrnl.exe c:\windows\system32

I have the same problem ntoskrnl.exe is missing and I was wondering if there is a place where I can just download that file for windows 2000 instead of a $100 disc.

Why is this problem so prevalent? Are we all missing something here?

Here's what happened to me.

Last night I was gaming as always... comp starts slowing down (odd cause it is very fast). I close out my game and decide to defrag. I open up dfrag on drive C (I have 2 drives... C has one partition and all my games, drive 2 has 4 partitions 40 gigs big each) It could not initialize my defrag... kept stopping it.

So I figure ok let me restart....

you know what comes next.... ntoskrnl.exe

So I try recovery but no dice... I tried installing win2k on my slave drive's H partition... and of course that does not work (who knew you can't install an OS on a slave drive?)

I did JrzyCrim's method... and I keep getting file cannot be found... but I noticed a problem with his code... I do not HAVE a sp1.cab. I do have an sp4.cab SO I check there... it spins up for a few, then says unable to copy the file....

So now what I am doing is running chkdsk /r on the C drive (which of course is taking so long I may see retirement before it is done).

What I had planned to do if this does not work is to take out slave drive, convert it to master, and install win2k on one of the partitions (I dunno if it will allow me to use the last partition in series, since I have info on the first 3). IF this does indeed work then I plan on moving all my games to that drive.

Are there any other suggestions I can try while I wait for this thing to get past 25% chkdsk status?

THank God I have 2 computers... but I gotta get comp 1 back up... in addition to games it has all my music recording software, and songs. (also a musician).

Anyone else with ideas, can also email me (send me PM too). I also sent a PM to JrzyCrim... before I read to post here instead of PMing lol.

Drew

P.S.- I do not have recovery floppies nor a floppy drive in this computer... just the two hard drives (the one with the problem is a maxtor 40 gig, the other is a seagate 200gig) I do however have a dvd rom in this computer.

Update...

it's been several days and several reinstalls later. I swapped out the slave and master drives too...

Now the new issue is it goes to win2k splash screen, then the blue screen where you sign in, then boom... back to complete restart... over and over...

I am starting to think this is a hardware issue now.

Tempted to buy a whole new hard drive (who has money for this crap)

I am utterly stumped.

HELP!

If your -system HDD- is in SLAVE mode at BIOS and acting as master, try to switch it to MASTER mode, the problem can be solved.

Mine is solved 🙂

I too have had the same problem...

_Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

:) I've used this method to replace corrupted system files on a few occasions. There is a folder in system32 called dllcache which contains backups of many critical system files. Generally, if you have a problem with a corrupted file which causes windows 2000/XP to crash or not load at all, you can use the recovery console and replace the file in question with the copy found in dllcache. The chances that the original file and the copy in dllcache are both corrupted are very slim. Of course, if you have problems with lots of files, you should always run a Virus scan...

Cheers,

My computer has the same problem as the one described in previous posts. I dropped my laptop and now it won't boot up. It's an IBM ThinkPad T23. It will show me the Thinkpad startup screen, then go blank for about 30 seconds and the hard drive makes a rhythmic loading sound. Then it shows me that message about ntoskrnl.exe being missing or corrupt.

JrzyCrim, you have posted a suggestion and it has seemed to work for at least one person. However, I am extremely computer-illiterate when it comes to hardware, OS, or registry problems. I have described my problem casually to an IT person and they said it may be that my hard drive has failed. But before I try to buy a new harddrive, I would like to try your suggestion. The problem is, though, that I have no idea how to access the dllcache in System 32. Could you tell me how to do this considering my computer won't even boot? And do I need a Windows XP CD to do this?

Thank you very much. You help would be so appreciated.

I have just received this "error message" upon switching on this morning although after rebooting and entering "F5" I was allowed to boot to windows using the "last known working configuration" option.

After an hour of browsing and 30 minutes of playing NFS CARBON, I have yet to encounter any problems?

Anyway, I found this guide for using the recovery console to repair the corrupt file(s) and was wondering if anyone has tried this method.

Any fresh feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I have received the dreaded message that the following file was missing or corrupt: ntoskrnl.exe.

The first two times this appeared was after rebooting when I intalled the motherboard drivers. Running the XP CD to repair the installation fixed the problem.

Yesterday I went in to install the IIs web server and on reboot was presented with the message again. Nothing I have done since has enabled me to get Win XP repaired or installed.

First step, however, was to rescue my data. This was done through installing my Fedora Core 5 Linux drive as master and making my Win XP a slave. I had to download and install an rpm file to update the Linux kernel so it would read the NTFS partition. This was successful, and I was able to see all files on my WIN XP drive and transfer my data files across to my Linux drive.

I am not concerned about the programs running under XP - I have most of them backed up on a USB Hard Drive anyway.

So I tried initially all the repair options suggested in this thread. To no avail. I have also deleted all partitions on the drive and let the Win XP CD go through partitioning and long format, and still get the same problem.

I even tried this suggestion and still, i come up with:
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
...."

My windows HD is a 80GB Seagate, about 3 months old, that is not making any untoward noise. It was running Linux SuSE with no problem up to two weeks ago, before I deleted the partitions and installed Win XP on to it.

Any recommendations? At the moment the best I can come up with is returning this drive for Linux use and finding another drive for Win XP, but its not the optimum option.

Further note: To eliminate the possibility the problem may be from CD media corruption, I have tried doing a clean full install from both a Win XP Pro SP1 CD and Win XP home CD, both resulting in the error message.

Hi Folks.

This is my 1st post with you .

I have read all the posts about the above topic,but I still can not get my p.c to work. This is what happed to me.

I was working on the p.c the other day,when the power in the house triped,
when the power came back on i had the error msg come up saying Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.

Now, this is where i fall down,the problem i have is this.

I turn on the p.c-----blank screen for 10-20 sec
Screen lights up with the above msg.
i put in the disc that came with the p.c (tiny-software libray/system driver and factory reset--this cd is for backup use only version xp 1.2) but the same thing happens, it seems that it will not read a disc,as i have made a copy of the above file from my laptop burned it to disc and tried that but to no avil.
Any help at all would be fantastic.

sorry for the misspelling ect,and any help you may render.

Steve

Well i have problem with the same "ntoskrnl.exe" file, but this goes beyond my understanding, see it's like my computer can't find my keyboard after the boot screen, i can go to bios and do what i like there but i can't boot from windows CD or anything, because when it says "press any key" the keyboard doesn't work anymore so i'm wondering if this could be some kind of a hardware problem because on my other computer it works fine... No idea what to do for it...

does anyone know what could be the cause and what to do? thanks in advance

sometimes that problem is related to a faulty keyboard

Doesn't seem to be the case, using the same keyboard right now and tried 3 keyboards... same results, in fact, tried linux too (ubuntu) didn't boot, guess its hardware problem, but still don't know what to do, new computer, new parts and doesn't work.... really annoying

if using a linux live cd made no difference then it is most likely : the graphic cards, the motherboard, the processor or the power supply or peripherals.

1-first remove all peripherals, pci cards and vga card. boot up without those.

2-to test the power supply: get one of those twisties that come on the bread bags, the ones to close the bag, strip the ends so the metal part will show, unplug the power supply port that goes to your motherboard, usually 20 or 24 pin female socket, look for the hole that has the green and black cable, if you have any more than one black pick any, jumper those two holes with the twistie while having the power supply connected to the electric socket, if power supply kicks in and stay like that then ps is fine, if it runs and stops or doesn't run at all get a new ps.

3-to test video card switch it with a friend's video card.

4-testing the mobo is a little tricky, I don't see a way to test it, besides getting those complicated testing pci chinese cards which i was never able to figure out, what you can do is remove the mobo from the case, let it sit onto an anti-static bag on your table and boot up from there, sometimes the mobo sits improperly on the case and creates shorts. this is the only method i have to test a mobo.

5-if the mobo doesn't work it doesn't also mean that you need a new processor, get a new mobo, put in old processor, if no luck then you will need a new processor.

good luck.
david.

I am not entirely sure how you came up with your diagnostic david but it makes no sense to me.

Is the keyboard a usb or ps2? Have you tried both?

If it is a USB model you could get a USB PCI card so you can plug the keyboard into those USB ports instead of the motherboard ports.

he mentioned that he doesn't know how to troubleshoot hardware problems, that is why i wrote all those steps.
initially i also thought about the keyboard, but he said he already tried 3 diff. keyboards, but to be 100 % sure he can boot up without a keyboard at all and see what happens.

As stated in previous post booting via "F5" stopped me getting this corrupt/repair message?

Well since then normal boots sometimes work and if not I just restart and boot again via F5 and again I get no problems ?

My system has not develop any other problems.

Hi. I tried to solve the ntoskrnl problem this way. I put my windows 2000 cd in my computer and booted it from there. I ran the recovery console and expanded the ntoskrnl.ex_ file onto my hard drive into the system32 directory. It all worked nice but when I exited the console the computer restarted as expected but now it keeps on restarting. It goes all the way to the white screen where the image of windows 2000 is and the blue bar loads itself. But when it reaches the end it reboots again and it keeps on doing it. Please help.
thanks

Try booting to safe mode. Go to control panel>administrative tools>event viewer. Check the system log for any errors that occurred after the boot. They may provide a clue to what's happening.

I tried the safe mode but that does the same thing the systems keeps on rebooting

I fixed by running a a repair from the cd. It lost me some application configurations and drivers but files remained so it is ok.

Hello,

I've had a problem with this file, I have XP.

I just reinstalled windows yesterday because of this file and two others being 'corrupt' [hal.dll, kdcom.dll]

This morning it came up with the error mentioned a lot on this page that the ntoskrnl.exe is corrupt and needs to be replaced.

What can cause this[ I ran constant virus and ad ware [Symantec, Ad-Aware Pro] scans before, and they were installed before I started doing anything else when I put Windows on.

Ok, just registered to tell my tale... while I didn't find my exact help, this site sure did jog my thoughts.

I had the issue of ntoskrnl.exe not found on boot too. This was after I had just upgraded my bios. I though for sure something had gone amuck as it always makes me nervous.

What it actually ended up being though is it set a few things back to defaults, such as my boot order and it was attempting to boot from a different HD. Once I flipped it back everything came up fine.

That said, I think some of these issues could definately be power or HD related. I had a similar issue 3 months ago, drive failures on my raided drives. UUUGH... turned out it was a loose cable. Not enough to fail, just cause a few issues. In that case, it took a few power ups for it to get by the missing files. Very strange until I tried the cables. Now it makes sense.

Anywhoo, hope this helps someone.

Hello everyone, hope someone can help me.

I have Windows 2000 Professional....and I cannot boot up Windows. I get a STOP message saying INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

I can't boot the computer in Safe Mode either as it does the same thing.

I then tried pressing F12 for Utility Mode
and that's when it saif that system\32ntoskrnl.exe was either missing or corrupt?

Is it possible that these two messages are related to each other? And is the only way to solve the problenm by using the Recovery Console on the Windows 2000 CD or is there another way?

Thanks,
Wes

I made some typos in my previous post...here is the clean one 🙂

Hello everyone, hope someone can help me.

I have Windows 2000 Professional....and I cannot boot up Windows. I get a STOP message saying INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

I can't boot the computer in Safe Mode either as it does the same thing.

I then tried pressing F12 for Utility Mode
and that's when it said that system32\ntoskrnl.exe was either missing or corrupt?

Is it possible that these two messages are related to each other? And is the only way to solve the problenm by using the Recovery Console on the Windows 2000 CD or is there another way?

Thanks,
Wes

i think the stop message: "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" was due to loose cable of your hard drive.. try to connect and disconnect your hd's cable... then give it a shot...

if you get system32\ntoskrnl.exe error message, run the repair from windows xp cd... usually this should recover the ntoskrnl.exe from that cd during the chkdsk /r functionality... use the chkdsk /r functionality of the recovery console...

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

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

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

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?

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?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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!

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:

cd c:\windows\system32 

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:

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

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 😁

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:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/what-are-the-system-recovery-options-in-windows-bd88ffdf-1e8e-34a0-d76f-39a71fb4ed4d

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.

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.

😕 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.

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:

EaseUS Data Recovery: https://www.easeus.com/data-recovery-software/
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 it's not a namebrand is to use killdisk. More full instructions are here:

https://www.ozzu.com/forum/363943/uninstall-windows-and-reclaim-hard-drive-space-on-partition

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?

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

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/

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 😁

I'm having this same problem:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

Actually, I don't think I made it to Automated System Recovery as I didn't press F2 fast enough and SETUP began loading files. Is the "recovery Console" part of the Automated System Recovery?

Hoping I didn't start overwriting the drive........

Hi all !
I have the problem :
When I turn on my computer I have a message :

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please re-install a copy of above file.

Try to do by stpes:
1) I have the problem:
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please re-install a copy of above file.

2) I put my cd ( Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition ) in cd-rom
3) then restart my computer and see something like this :
Press any key to boot from CD....
I press any button let it be A
4) then I see :
Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration
5) I am waitting some 5 minutes and see next:
Windows Xp Home Edition setup
Welcome to setup
I see 3 choses :
To set up Windows Xp press Enter
To repair a Windows Xp installation using Recovery Console press R
to quit setup with out installation Windows XP pres F3

I press R

Now I am in Recovery Console ! and see something like this :

Microsoft Windows XP<TM> Recovery Console.
The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality.
Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer.

1: C:\Windows

Wich Windows installation would you like to log onto
<To cancel, press ENTER>?

I write 1 and press enter

And see next :

type the Administrator password:
I type a password and press Enter

now I see :

C:\Windows>

Can someone tell my what I need to write next ? ( I have 10 mb very important files on my computer and I do not wnat to format because I will lose them ( I know how to format it easy

thanks !

The command to use is:
expand Cd drive:\i386\Ntoskrnl.EX C:\windows\system32
So for example if your CD ROM Drive is normally D:
you would use:
expand D:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex C:\windows\system32

If it fails because it says the destination is read only you will need to use this command and then try the expanding again:
attrib -R C:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Hi all currently seeking help regarding this same problem with the ntoskrnl.exe.

I am running Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and our system took a power hit which I believe led to the hard drives getting corrupted krnl file.
First problem was the NTDETECT Failure, I've fixed that with a start up disk with my other server I have copied the files directly to a diskette and have gotten it now to choose an OS. 2 Options being Windows 2000 Server, or 2000 Recovery Console, either option leads me to the same error, cannot load ntoskrnl.exe.

My system is currently setup as a SCSI Raid 5 configuration. I've tried to place my windows cd and repair it manually, however when I attempt to access the hard disk drives it gives me an error stating "Cannot detect any hard disk drive ect ect" I'm basically stuck at this point. I do not know how to load my ntoskrnl.exe back to normal. I've tried entering DOS mode and copying from my system32/cache/ntoskrl.exe however its telling me that the directory does not exists, and when I type DIR in dos from C:\ it doesn't even look as if an operating system is even there, however it still shows up at the OS menu when I boot the computer.

Any help is grately appreciated. I currently have over 85 people with no email who are hating me right now. lol.

Thanks all.
-Tony

Do you have any backups?

Yes, I do have backups, but not a full system backup. Its more of a system state / microsoft exchange mailboxes backup. However backups are 10 days behind or so, but I'd say thats better than nothing =x

Would you possibly know why Im unable to restore from a Win2000 CD? I'm not too saavy with scsi/raid configurations so Im just learning as I go.

Probably because you need the SCSI drivers in order to install. When you boot off the install disk at the bottom it should say something like Press F6 to load SCSI/RAID drivers. You would press F6 and then insert your floppy disk containing the RAID drivers. This enables Windows to properly install onto an Array.

The command to use is:
expand Cd drive:\i386\Ntoskrnl.EX C:\windows\system32
So for example if your CD ROM Drive is normally D:
you would use:
expand D:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex C:\windows\system32

If it fails because it says the destination is read only you will need to use this command and then try the expanding again:
attrib -R C:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Whwn I write the comand :

expand D:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ C:\windows\system32

Then I see :

The system cannot find the file or directory specified.

😟 😟

I do not know maybe I write something wrong can you tell me ?

And else How to know my CD letter ?

YEEEEEEE Thanks I have done it

My letter is E 🙂 it works I have get my documents back and know I can format windows 🙂

Hi.
I'm having the same problem with the ntoskrnl.exe

It's actually happened twice in one day - I fixed it once (or thought I did), and it happened later on the same night (tonight).

But, my problem is that my keyboard locks up/freezes, preventing me from accessing any of the menues (boot menu/bios; system recovery; etc).

So. D: Yeah.

I would suggest you do a thorough check of your hardware Nox_Noctis. Start with your RAM and do a chkdsk. If those both pass then might be a good idea to check the power supply and the motherboard. Have you tried a different keyboard by the way?

Hard Drive: In Recovery Console after logging in type chkdsk C: /p /r

hiya! im having a problem too!

when i start my computer it doesnt start up and it says the
<windows root>/system32/ntoskrnl.exe
is mssing or corrupted.

i havent kept any of my installation disc and i dont know what to do please help!

thanks steph

I hate to say it but you are not in a good situation. I don't suppose you happened to Install the Recovery Console to your hard drive?
This might be your best bet: https://tweaks.com/windows/36941/install-recovery-console-without-an-xp-cd/. All the steps mentioned above use Recovery Console because ntoskrnl.exe is always in use when windows is running. After downloading and burning that image file restart. Unfortunately I haven't used it myself but imagine it is just the windows xp recovery console without the rest of the windows setup.

The command to use is:

expand Cd drive:\i386\Ntoskrnl.EX_ C:\windows\system32

So for example if your CD ROM Drive is normally D:

you would use:

expand D:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ C:\windows\system32

If it fails because it says the destination is read only you will need to use this command and then try the expanding again:

attrib -R C:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Hi,

missing or corrupt ntoskrnl.exe

I've encountered this problem also and tried the recovery console, but every command came back as

"the system cannot find the file or directory specified"

or

"Error: Faile to add selected boot entry to the boot list

It seems like the recovery console can't see the rest of the c:\ drive - also that there's no existence of a boot entry and can't add one

Also that there was no option to Select the operating system, as it states in many procedure of rebuilding the Windows boot?

CHKDSK /r - went to 50% then it stopped and stated that some couldn't be repair 😱

I use a Vaio S-Series - I have so many important files and can't afford to lose them

What should I do now? Please help

Thank You

Ouch notebook. That puts my first suggestion out the window. Next suggestion: Try a linux/windows XP liveCD. Both should have utilities to check the integrity of your hard drive because I'm not real hopeful at the moment that you hard drive isn't on the way out. If you have an external hard drive as well.. Hook it up and try using the LiveCD to backup any data possible as well.

You could try:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ or the windows version that is linked to on that site(it requires more work to get it set up though)
Ubuntu has a downloadable Live CD I believe as well.
And for a massive list of Live CD's..
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

Here's what happened to me and what I did to fix it. Windows 2000. Dell Optiplex GX-280. SATA HD.

First, Why did I get this problem. I moved to a new pod at work and ignored the little voice in my head that said to make an image of the machine's hard drive before moving 😳 . I set up in the new pod and plugged my computer in and halfway through the boot process the power (on the surge protected) outlet went out. So power interruption was my culprit. I got the dreaded ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt (boy was it ever) error.

I tried the recovery console and ran CHKDSK /P /R. A few interesting things happened. (1) I was not prompted for which installation I wanted to log on to, (2) not prompted for an admin password. The reason being (looking back now) was that my WINNT folder was toast, along with the system32 folder and everything in it.

When the CHKDSK finished (I have had good luck with this tool before) it said that it had found and fixed several problems. Good I thought, I am back to normal, I rebooted and Whamo! same error. I tried every post on this discussion (well at least up until page 9!) and none of them worked except for one. I will now make this long story short 🙂 !

When CHKDSK found and repaired the directories it did NOT rename them the same thing. My WINNT directory was named "Found.001". There were four subdirectories within the "Found.001" folder including the "System32, i386 and two others" labeled something like "Found.001,.002,.003,etc.).
I was lucky enough to have another machine that I could stick my hard drive in and compare files to determine which folder was which. After renaming them and copying them back to the root of C: I was able to successfully start my computer. WooHoo! I still had some errors so I ran system file checker (Goto Run, type "CMD" to open a DOS window, then type "sfc /scannow, and follow the windows prompts). With time and patience I have fixed them. I had to find out what each "Found" folder was named originally and rename it and put it back in it's right place. So if you run the Recovery Console and it finds and fixes the errors and you still have this problem, run Recovery Console again and run the DIR command and look for Directories named "Found.XX". This may help you find what's missing and what has to be renamed. Also I am going to follow my advice and make an image (Ghost) of my machine's hard drive.

Thanks to whoever put that post about CHKDSK renaming folders "Found.xx". That has fixed my problem, a problem that I had previously been unable to solve on other computers. This was not the first time I have battled the "ntoskrnl.ex" error. But this is the first time I have beaten it.

Moderator, could you put a post near the first few pages encouraging people to keep reading all the posts on this topic because there are solutions for some people. Thanks.

There seems to be different solutions for the same problems for different people. Is it because of different ways a person might get the error or because of the system running or what is the variable?

There are a lot of people having this problem...and when they use XP's recovery funtion they are denied access. It is possible that the problem is worse when using RAID configuration.

Anyway I did CHKDSK /r from the recovery utility and this fixed the problem. Not that this would always work but it's worth a shot.

FYI

Hi have the ntoskrnl.exe problem and have done everything that it say on here to solve the problem.. when i go into recovery and press the OS 1 that i want to recover, after a bit i get a blue screen saying that it cannot continue as there is a error.. anyone know anything about this and as any actualy solved this ntoskrnl.exe problem..

when i turn on my computer an error pops up before windows even starts

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe. Please reinstall a copy of the above file. My question is if I do a repair installation of windows will I lose all my data and all my programs. I am running windows xp pro. PLEASE HELP!!

Try reseating your RAM (Memory)
card. Shut off pc, remove memoery card, clean card contacts and slot, then reinsert it, not sure of results, just see if it works or helps.

john drake1

Hi Guys, I have recently experienced the ntoskrnl.exe problem described in the very first post of this thread. I tried both of the methods suggested by JrzyCrim but get either: 'The file could not be copied' or 'Unable to create file ntoskrnl.exe
0 file(s) expanded.'
I also attempted the method suggested by Alkatr0z on page 14 but again all I get in response is: 'Unable to create file ntoskrnl.exe
0 file(s) expanded.'
I am running XP on a Compaq Presario R3030EA if that's any help. Any suggestions as to how solve my problem would be massively apreciated.

Cheers

Hi everyone 🙂 I just got my laptop back from repair shop on Thursday of last week - I had done a fresh install of XP Pro but there were too many drivers missing so had them put on in repair shop. Everything was running excellent, until yesterday (Sunday) when, for no apparent reason I got a 'system shut down message' and it went off before I got a chance to read it. When I tried to boot up again, I got the NTOSKRNL.EXE missing or corrupt message, and it said to insert disc to repair. While I went to get my disc, the laptop made a few short beeps, went off, and it wont switch on at all now!! Is it dead forever or is there something I can try without the expense of repair shop? Any help would be great, as Im at my wits end with it now. Thanks guys, Donna

Hi guys, just to let you know, I decided to use a bit of logic and stop being a panicking woman :O lol ....this led to me removing the battery, checking the power supply etc, and it is firing up now 🙂 I'm going to systematically work my way through all your previous advise on this topic to try to repair the corrupt file now 🙂

I have tried the recovery console so many times my head is buzzing! I keep getting access denied when I try to expand ntoskrnl. On a second look through posts, I found a link that had been suggested BUT, the wording at the top of the link page says 'repair', but the instructions are for re-install?, can anyone tell me if I go for the install option will my previous installation be wiped, or will it simply 'fill in the gaps' and sort my problem? Thanks, hope to hear from any helpers 🙂

I have this problem as well, however I am not able to even get a command prompt. If I press F12 I get the BOOT DEVICE MENU but any slection gets the ntoskrnl error. When I insert my re-install CD and restart my computer, i just get the "<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please reinstall a copy of the above file" message.

I'm not much of an operating system wiz., I'm a graphic designer, so if I'm missing something in all these pages (which I have read) please let me know. I haven't seen instructions for accessing the Recovery Console.

Thanks for any prompt help.
David

when i turn on my computer an error pops up before windows even starts

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe. Please reinstall a copy of the above file. My question is if I do a repair installation of windows will I lose all my data and all my programs. I am running windows xp pro. PLEASE HELP!!

i have problem with my laptop. my vista won't boot. when i start the coputer i says windows is trying for system repair recovery. after few seconds i says "windows cannot repair automatically"
in the diagnostic report i get the following

name: windows boot log diagnosis
result:completed successfully, Error code 0x0

root cause found
boot critical file c:\ntoskrnl.exe is corrupt.

still havent found out how to solve the ntoskrnl.exe problem, anyone with any ideas...!!

Missing boot file:
I was reading about the missing ntoskrnl.exe file and I have the same problem with my desktop computer.
This is the problem:
No safe mode accessable or previous well last boot available. All say the same about missing ntosknl.
I tried the R console and could not pass the "enter the administration password" since the xp pro OS was installed by the previous owner I don't have a clue of it. I pulled the HD and plugged it in as -slave in my other comp.; I can browse it and see all files, but I have little or no knowlegde of how to replace or repare the missing file in question. Or if it's possible to do through this method.
I wish I could retain those programs and files in that HD.
Any help in this matter will be greatly appreciated. thank you all.

I hate to bump this topic it is so old but I don't have the disk. All I got was the main piece of the computer. No mouse no keyboard no monitor.

Is there another way?

Hmmmm, I've just been trying to help you in your other thread...
Should've been nice if you stayed at one place 🙄

Anyway, without the original Windows installation CD, there's not
much you can do, I'm afraid. 😐

Hmmmm, I've just been trying to help you in your other thread...
Should've been nice if you stayed at one place 🙄

Anyway, without the original Windows installation CD, there's not
much you can do, I'm afraid. 😐

When I bought my Asus system, I was only issued with a Recovery CD ROM and a Driver and Utility CD. I do not see any Windows Installation CD. Did I miss out anything that was supposed to come in the original package?

Sorry if the problem is not to be repeated today, but my computer has crashed, without wanting to damage a file under windows in system32, and that is not very smart but he was desperate because it did not work well and prove and damaged at all.
I can do?
tested with the Windows CD to repair errors no risk of losing my data?
There are some other way?

I don't quit understand what you are saying...

You can repair with the CD without loosing your data... that's without formatting... if you format, THAT'S when you will loose the data.

Hi

I'm trying to install a new clean version of Windows XP. This is the message i'm getting straight after the BIos screen.

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

Insert the Microsoft Windows XP CD. Note: If you have a recovery CD or a restore CD and not a Microsoft Windows XP CD it is likely the below steps will not resolve your issue.

Reboot the computer, as the computer is starting you should see a message to press any key to boot from the CD. When you see this message press any key.

In the Microsoft Windows XP setup menu press the R key to enter the recovery console.

Select the operating system you wish to fix, and then enter the administrator password.

Type expand d:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ c:\windows\system32

You will then be prompted if you wish to overwrite the file type Y and press enter to overwrite the file.

Type exit to reboot the computer.

Thanks so much JrzmCrim!

Somehow I inserted a floppy disk this afternoon and also I shut off the power supply by accident when I was doing some cleaning. When I restart my computer it didn't boot and gave some error information saying "ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupted". I saw some forum mentioned the keyboard and I found my keyboard seemed "dead". But still the problem persisted.

I followed your commands in Recovery Console and solved the ntoskrnl.exe problem, but then another file called "hal.dll" became the problem. I tried in a similar way but finally saw another problem of "\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM". I was about to give up before I followed your helpful link. It works now and I am able to reply your post 🙂

The repaired system took some time to update all the drivers, except VGA which I re-installed.

Thanks again JrzmCrim!