ntoskrnl.exe is corrupted. windows wont open

July 28th, 2004, 9:07 pm

[searcher] wrote:

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.

July 29th, 2004, 4:23 am

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 ).

July 29th, 2004, 5:08 am

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.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;315341

Look at Method 2.

July 29th, 2004, 7:44 am

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?

[ATNO/TW]

July 29th, 2004, 7:51 am

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.

July 29th, 2004, 7:57 am

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 .

July 29th, 2004, 8:01 am

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!).

[ATNO/TW]

July 29th, 2004, 8:08 am

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.

August 5th, 2004, 9:05 am

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

[ATNO/TW]

August 5th, 2004, 7:54 pm

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!

August 5th, 2004, 9:00 pm

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.

August 6th, 2004, 8:37 am

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

August 12th, 2004, 7:47 am

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!

[ATNO/TW]

August 12th, 2004, 8:33 am

Anonymous_coward wrote:

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.

August 12th, 2004, 9:01 am

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