[AaronJay]

Hello

The other day I was transferring a large amount of emails from one folder to another and when I returned to my computer I came across the following error message -- <windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt

I tried several times to reboot and with no success. I have searched the internet from work looking for a solution and haven’t been very successful there either. When I check Microsoft’s website for help I don’t see anything related to my specific problem. I do find help related to <windows NT root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe or <winnt root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe but not <windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

I would greatly appreciate any advice on resolving this problem. I have a lot music and my baby's pictures that I don’t want to lose so I am trying to figure out how to get that information recovered instead of reformatting the computer.

One thought I had was to go out and by a new hard drive and reinstall XP on that and hope when I connected my old C: drive to the new hard drive I wouldn’t be having this problem and would be able to salvage the information I didn’t want to lose. Not being very computer savvy I didn’t know if that would work so I thought I would reach out for some advice before I started experimenting on my own and likely worsened the problem.

I have a Dell 4500 Dimension that has two hard drives C: & D: - I installed the D: awhile ago and assume it is still okay. The only XP disk I have is the one that comes with the desktop computer from dell for reformatting purposes I believe.

If anyone out there could please help me out or point me in the right direction to get this resolved without losing my pictures and a few other things that I find valuable I would be very thankful.

Thanks for your help in advance - Aaron

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Welcome!

There are detailed instructions here that may help to fix your problem. At the last step, I believe that it should say bootcfg /rebuild instead.

[Pi rules]

Welcome!

There are detailed instructions here that may help to fix your problem. At the last step, I believe that it should say bootcfg /rebuild instead.

[AaronJay]

Pi thanks for your advice but unfortunately it didn’t work. I got half way through the instructions and I wasn’t able to perform all the commands. The copy commands wouldn’t copy. Since that didn’t work, I was thinking about maybe buying a new hard drive since I am about out of space on my two 20 gigs and trying to load XP onto the new drive and connecting my old C drive to it and accessing the information that way. Do you think that would work? It was just an idea I had. If you don’t think that would work my other options seems to only be to have Geek Squad come out and fix it for about $250. If you don’t mind sharing your opinion on the situation then please do.

Thanks,

Aaron

[Pi rules]

Buying a second hard drive should work; you may need to take ownership of the folders/files, and there is a link in the 4th line of my signature that has instructions.

Was there some error when you tried the copy command? Was it unable to read the files from the CD or unable to write them to the hard drive?

Try going into the Recovery Console and type Type expand d:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ c:\windows\system32 then type exit to see if it worked.

It could also be a corrupted installation or hard drive. Please go to the Recovery Console again and this time type chkdsk /r, then when it finishes, type exit and try to boot XP.

[AaronJay]

I think it was unable to copy them from the CD, but i will try what you suggested. It is good to hear that getting a new drive might work. I would much prefer to do that since i need more capacity rather than paying them that much just for fixing the problem.

[AaronJay]

Pi just an FYI on the instructions i followed.

When entering the command - copy ntldr C: or copy ntdetect.com C: -- I would get the message "The file could not be copied"

When trying the command - expand d:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ c:\windows\system32 -- I get the message "The system could not find the file or directory specifics"

And when trying the command - chkdsk /r -- It took a really long time and at 50% complete it said "The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems"

I just wanted to give you a heads up. Thanks for trying to help. Hopefully getting a new hard drive will work. Take care.

[Pi rules]

Sorry, but it looks like the installation is too corrupt to repair. The hard drive could possibly be going bad as well. Do you hear any unusual noises coming from it?

A new hard drive should work. As I mentioned, you may need the link in my signature if you checked "Mark this folder as private" to take ownership of those files. If you have trouble getting them, PC Inspector may help.