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NTOSKRNL.exe errror... then not at a different house, same tower.


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#1
thatguy488

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Hello all,

Long time follower, first time poster.

Wondering if some of you could shower some wisdom on this problem I'm having (or now, lack of a problem.)

So my friend calls me up and says his computer won't start. He runs Windows 2000 SP4 all updated to latest patches.

It has been running nicely for about 1-2 months, then all of a sudden the error comes up saying win2000root\ntoskrnl.exe error.

I asked him to restart several times and to try to get to safe mode by pressing F8 but he was unable to get past the POST screen.

I then went on and offered to help him out as I'm generally pretty good with diagnosing and fixing computers but I have been unable for the life of me to get the same error when I start it up at my house, as in, it boots right to their desktop without any issues.

I kept it on all night and no blue screens or restarting occurred either.

Now, they did inform me that they had someone replace their hard-drive and reinstall Windows about 1-2 months ago after their hard drive crashed, but haven't had any problems since then.

THe first thought that came to my mind was that odd 7.8 GB partition limitation in Windows 2000, so I checked and sure enough it is one large, 30GB partition on the drive.

Then, it occurred to me that they live in an old house with old wiring, and do not have a UPS, (just a surge protector).

Could bad power be causing that message? Or is it related to the HD not being formatted correctly? Or something I'm missing completely?


Sorry for the longwinded post, but your help is appreciated!

Edited by thatguy488, 14 September 2009 - 10:18 AM.

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#2
rshaffer61

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Hello thatguy488.... Welcome to GeeksToGo, :) :) :)

I'm sorry to hear about your issue. We will try to help you resolve this as soon as possible.
Please understand we are all volunteers and we are not here all the time. Sometimes it may be a extended amount of time to get back to you. If it has been more then 3 days please shoot me a PM and I will try to get back to you quickly then.


When you take the system to your house are you using his keyboard or yours?
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#3
thatguy488

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Hey thanks for your quick reply. I am usiing my usb keyboard here at my place. He only brought the tower. I saw that a faulty ground wire on keyboard is a possible issue here, is that what you're thinkig as well?
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#4
rshaffer61

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Yeppers we are on the same track.
Try using a different wired keyboard and see if the problem goes away.
Let me know as i believe we know the outcome already. :) :) :)
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#5
thatguy488

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Just as a precaution, should I also resize the primary partition to say 7500MB to rule out the 7.8GB limitation? I could then make a storage or data partition w remaining unallocated spaace. I haven't checked if the bios supports int13 yet... I was thinking maybe somehow the file in question got moved out past the GB boundary during a system update, but that wouldn't explain it working perfectly at my place... thoughts before I advise him to buy a new keyboard?

Edited by thatguy488, 14 September 2009 - 03:08 PM.

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#6
rshaffer61

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It wouldn't explain it working correctly at your place.
The only thing that has changed from his place to yours is the KB, Mouse and maybe the monitor.
It works with yours but when you take it to him it stops.
I would suggest taking your kb with you and trying it at his house. If it works then shut the system down and try his KB.
If it doesn't work then I would say the problem has been resolved. :) :)
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#7
rshaffer61

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Please let us know what the results are good or bad as this may help others with the same type of issue.
We are always interested in knowing the final outcome be it good or bad.
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#8
thatguy488

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Will do for sure,

He's coming over tomorrow with his old PS/2 keyboard and a new USB one so we can test it for sure.

Will update accordingly.
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#9
rshaffer61

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Thank you and I will await your results :)
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#10
thatguy488

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Bad news and serious blow to morale!

Tried old keyboard and it still worked fine.

I sent it home with him to try it at home again, and said to call if he experiences the same thing tonight.

One thing he mentioned was a slight mechanical popping noise that had occurred around the time of said error message received and the monitor may have even blinked, he wasn't sure...

If this sheds anymore light on the issue, that would be sweet.

Hope to hear any and all ideas as this is getting personal now :) me vs. computer.

Thanks!

Edited by thatguy488, 16 September 2009 - 06:18 PM.

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#11
thatguy488

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Problem appears to be resolved.

My friend used all his old hardware, but changed only his power cord leading from surge protector to tower, and was able to get it running.

I didn't even know those could go bad...
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#12
happyrock

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thanks for letting us know... :)
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#13
thatguy488

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Ok, so the other power cable seemed to work for a while...

now they are having the same problem...

Comes up with a black screen... something along the lines of ntoskrnl.exe not found again from what he told me.

New ideas?
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#14
happyrock

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try removing the surge protector ...
nojoy... try running chkdsk /r
nojoy...try booting into safe mode with networking...
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#15
thatguy488

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Ok turns out that it had nothing to do with the hard drive.

They took it to a local shop and they diagnosed on of the cd-roms was bad and that had somehow corrupted the windows installation, either upon initial install or somehow thereafter.

Anyways, CD=Rom is now disconnected from the mainboard and will be re-re-installing windows 2000 on 'er.

My question now is how the [bleep] can a bad cd rom cause a boot failure? This is not something they taught in the A+ manual :)
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