ntoskrnl.exe is missing

Buford T Justice

Hi

My relations have buggard their PC. when they're trying to boot up now, it gives an error message after a while saying that it cannot find ntoskrnl.exe

I've followed the instructions on the microsoft kb site, but it didn't help.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477

Any ideas?

hearny

Did you try all of the methods.

What were the results did you get error messages.

I've used all of those methods to recover from the same error.

IvySlayer

XP I assume? Just reinstall windows. Should be fixed. Look for a recovery CD.

Buford T Justice

IvySlayer wrote: »

XP I assume? Just reinstall windows. Should be fixed. Look for a recovery CD.

I'd rather not though. Every time I've had to re-install windows I run into licensing problems. The only recovery disk I have is XP Pro, and I don't have a 'genuine' licence for it.

I would much rather repair it.

Buford T Justice

hearny wrote: »

Did you try all of the methods.

What were the results did you get error messages.

I've used all of those methods to recover from the same error.

Method 2 didn't work, and it only gave me another boot option when booting.

Tried method 3 and I got a message saying 'Unable to Create file ntoskrnl.exe'

chkdsk was running when I left it, not sure of the state of it now. Which method worked for you?

woolymammoth

on top of the bootcfg /rebuild, and trying to copy in a new file, you should the commands fixboot and fixmbr at the repair console command prompt. There's a possibility chkdsk will resolve the problem too.

jholland79

What make and model is the PC? It would be worth running a hardware diagnostic before doing much more. Some PCs will have a utility or diagnostic partition which will test hardware, in particular the Hard Drive and RAM. Wise not to do too much until you know the Hard Drive is ok.

hearny

They have all worked in various situations.

fixboot and fixmbr would be worth a shot too.

Try metod 3 again.

There is a command to list the drives at recovery console I think its

map

This will tell you the drive letters of the Hard Drive (should be C:) and the disk drive you are copying from.

If you have the drive letters try the command again, it should be something like:

expand \i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Post any errors or messages but that should do it for you.

Buford T Justice

hearny wrote: »

If you have the drive letters try the command again, it should be something like:

expand \i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Post any errors or messages but that should do it for you.

I have the Drive identifier and when I put in the above I get a message saying Unable to Create file ntoskrnl.exe 0 files expanded

hearny

Boot into recovery console again.

Confirm that the file you need to expand is there.

run the following commands:



cd i386

dir

Look for the ntoskrnl.ex_ in the list

Now we will rename the original ntoskrnl.exe buy running the following command:

C:

cd windows

cd system32

ren ntoskrnl.exe ntoskrnl.bak

expand \i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Post any messages here.