Windows unable to start

[bassman]

Hello all. Well, my kids machine has lost ntoskrnl.exe. When I start machine, it takes along time then comes to a black screen saying "Windows was unable to start. Windows\System32\ntoskrnl.exe is either missing or corrupt". I am unable to get to a command prompt and I do not have access to my XP disk at this moment.
Some specs:
Ibuiltit-
XP Pro SP2
C: 80 Gig
512 Mb

What I have tried-
Boot to command prompt (no joy)
Removed HDD and placed in another machine to copy file (wouldn't copy because it was in use)
Booting from CD with backup copy of XP (not bootable I guess)

looking for some ideas. Anybody have any?

[Sylvander]

1. The first thing I would do is to use a universal boot floppy like this (http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/ntboot/) to attempt to boot into Windows.
When that presents you with its menu at Startup, choose to attempt to boot TO the physical HDD [1st?] and partition [1st?][the boot partition] that holds the Windows [or WINNT?] folder [the boot.ini settings must use the correct folder name].
If that fails you can try one different partition after the other.
(a) If any attempt succeeds [mentally note which drive/partition], once into Windows, replace the boot files on the HDD with all but the boot.ini file on the floppy.
Then check the copy of the boot.ini file on the Windows partition [at C:\] to see if it's OK or not.

(b) If it doesn't succeed in getting you into Windows [it usually DOES succeed when I've experienced such as these] you then know that there's a problem with either accessing the contents of the Windows folder on the HDD, or else the contents themselves, and you can take it from there.

(c) You could use an OS [BartPE or Linux] loaded off a live CD to take a look at the contents of the Windows partition on the internal HDD.

Windows NT could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
Winnt_root\System32\Ntoskrnl.exe (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477)

[bassman]

Thanks Sylvander. Messed with all of that for a bit but I think I have had enough of fighting with windows on this one. My skills are fading and I don't have the patients any more. I either format and install ME on this one or I make it a Linux box.
Any recommendations for a simpleton on which version of Linux. This is a day-to-day machine needing internet, e-mail, and office apps.

[Sylvander]

"Any recommendations...on which version of Linux"
I'm no expert, but I've given a few Linux distros a bit of a try and Knoppix 5.1.1 impresses me (http://iso.linuxquestions.org/knoppix/knoppix-5.1.1/). :)

Did you manage to make and try the boot floppy?
What happened?

About the only time it failed to take me into Windows was when I swapped my HDD from the internal IDE controller to a PCI to IDE controller card.
I discovered that it is then necessary to initialize [partition and format] the drive whilst it is connected to the new controller.

Or when I needed to restore the MBR.
I used my "Emergency Boot CD" [EBCD] to do that.

[bassman]

Hi Sylvander. What happens is, I either have faulty floppies or faulty drives. Since I have so few of either, I quickly ran out of attempts. Format would not complete so I never got to the point of copying NTDETECT or NTLDR. I do have the option of burning a CD. If I could do that I would be golden but I fear it does not work that way (been there, done that). AARRGGGG. I hate feeling like an idiot. This stuff just doesn't click with me any more.
Anyway, my son needs a machine to get back on line so he can make money to buy his new gamer. I always wanted to build a Linux box. Talk about glutton for punishment :rolleyes:

[Sylvander]

Ask a neighbour or nearby friend to make one for you. :)

If that happened to me I'd phone ErnieK and he'd post one to me. :cool:

[Paul Komski]

I've compiled a bootable iso of a bootxp cd which is available for a day or so for direct download (1.75MB) at:
http://www.paulski.com/bootcds/bootxp.iso
md5 checksum = 7c9a6058655ad8d352e9b409f7934c27

Just burn it to a blank CD using BurnCDCC (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm)or similar and you should get 8 options of booting XP from Disk1 Partition1 (the most common) through Disk2 Partition 4.

If it works then you probably just need to edit your own boot.ini to match once in windows. You can read your current boot.ini file using BiNG or EditBini also from the TBU website if you cannot get into WinXP.

Getting (beg-borrow-"steal") any bootable retail WinXP CD should allow you to do various direct repairs.

[Sylvander]

Nice one Paul. :)
I bet that's easy to do IF YOU KNOW HOW. :cool:

I downloaded the iso and it checked out using winMD5sum to compare the MD5 checksum to the value for the file [really easy].
Burned the iso to a CD-RW disk using ImgBurn [really easy].

Tried booting "FROM" the CD, and that worked OK, but couldn't boot "TO" the HDD because I don't have WinXP installed [Win2000Pro] and this disk must be set up to boot only XP [a folder named Windows, whereas mine is named WINNT?]. :(
Would it be possible to make an optical disk that boots either of NT/2000/XP as my floppy does?

I used IsoBuster to extract the BootImage.img file from the Bootxp.iso file.
How might I look inside the img file at the contents, and extract the files?
TBIview is installed and registered to open img files, but when that is attempted TBIview reports it is not a valid image file. :(

[Paul Komski]

If you have a functional 1.4MB boot floppy diskette then you can turn it into a functional boot CD by first turning the floppy into a floppy image file (http://www.paulski.com/zpages.php?id=1712) with winimage or the Mirkes.de utility (renamed to floppy.img afterwards) and then creating the iso with my zmakeiso utility (http://www.paulski.com/zpages.php?id=1814). The only floppies that won't work are those that require writing to the floppy since the CD will not be writable (once created) even if it is CDRW.

[Sylvander]

Followed your links and successfully made a bootable CD-RW disk from my NT/2000/XP boot floppy "System Disk".
How about "Bootable CD NT/2000/XP System Disk" for a name?
Anyway, it took me into Windows OK.
I bet if I tried to repeat that at some future time I'd have forgotten how.

But it failed to take me to the "Recovery Console" [or "Command Console" at C:\cmdcons?]
The floppy fails to do that also.
Reason being I need to load the [SCSI?] drivers for my "PCI to ATA RAID Controller Card", and I've forgotten or don't know how to load them.
That driver is odd, sometimes it must be loaded and sometimes not

A normal boot using the boot files in C:\ can take me to the Recovery/Command Console by choosing that item at Startup as supplied by the [B]C:\boot.ini file.

How are things are your end bassman?

[bassman]

How are things are your end bassman?
I am following the conversation and hope to get a chance to work on it today or this weekend. Some good tips here and it gets my brain working on computer again ;)
He had a similar problem with this machine a while back and in hind sight, I think repairing the MBR would have solved the last problem, but instead we ended up with a full re-install. I would rather not do that again but if I cant figure this out this weekend, it goes Linux.

Thanks gang. Much appreciated.

[Paul Komski]

A normal boot using the boot files in C:\ can take me to the Recovery/Command Console by choosing that item at Startup as supplied by the C:\boot.ini file.

The recovery console runs from a winxp cd (after pressing the first R prompt) unless you have installed it to the hard drive (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/307654). In the latter case it should have added a line to the normal boot.ini so just replace one of the current lines in your QuickBootXP floppy with that line; (a total of eight lines is the maximum I think).

Reason being I need to load the [SCSI?] drivers for my "PCI to ATA RAID Controller Card", and I've forgotten or don't know how to load them.
That driver is odd, sometimes it must be loaded and sometimes not [because a particular disk includes them and loads them itself?]You need the drivers on a floppy and then press F6, early in the text mode part of running the winxp cd, to install them when prompted later.

if I cant figure this out this weekend, it goes Linux.Knoppix, as suggested, is good - particularly from the live CD but I'm not so fond of it installed to the hard drive and it's not as easy to install as Ubuntu (Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download)), which is what I would suggest for a Linux n00b.

[Sylvander]

I have Win2000Pro.
Have the Recovery Console installed to the internal HDD Windows [C:] partition, and normally use that.
When booting off the HDD I'm presented with the option to boot the Recovery Console [or Windows], and if I choose that I'm then given the opportunity to load the controller card drivers [they're on a floppy], and that works OK.
SUCCESS! :)

Not so when I boot from the boot floppy or CD.
Both of those offer the option to load the Recovery Console, but if I choose that there seems no option to load the card drivers, so the attempt fails.
If I hit F6 [tried that at various points in time], a notice is displayed to hit F3 to go into the RAID BIOS of the card, but the Recovery Console doesn't load.

[bassman]

OK. Time for an update. I finally got a chance to try the iso and was given a number of options for XP boot. Tried the first two and still ran into the missing osntkrnl. file. Haven't had much time to play with this one for a bit but I do today.
I can boot to DOS using my ME disk, then switch to my XP disk, but not getting anywhere with that. Seems that once I can view files on the XP disk, I should be able to initiate recovery console, but I can not find it.
I am prepared to format and install ME to get this thing back to working but would really like to save some of the info on that drive. Any other suggestions?
Thanks gang.

[bassman]

OK!!! Now I'm getting somewhere. Turns out I have a neighbor with an XP Pro disk. I ran Recovery console and found that my MBR is unreadable. Looking through MSKB, I am unsure of what to do now. Any help?

[Paul Komski]

If the MBR is truly unreadable (as opposed to being corrupt or unreachable), say because of a bad sector, then the drive is effectively toast. What specific message did you get from the RC and have you considered running the drive maker's diagnostics on the drive?

Can you run fdisk /mbr from MSDOS on the drive or does that fail or generate an error message into the bargain?

[bassman]

Hey Paul. Thanks. I guess I missed the e-mail telling my of your last response. I am now currently reformatting the drive and installing ME.
I did try FIXMBR a second time and that told me it went successfully. I then tried a normal boot and it said "Failed. Insert boot disk and try again." I then went back to the RC and tried FIXBOOT. it went successful but when trying a normal boot it said ntoskrnl.exe corrupt or missing. I give! Starting over.

Thanks to all for your help.

[Sylvander]

Anytime I ever got the warning "ntoskrnl.exe is either missing or corrupt" I was never forced to resort to a re-install; usually my "Universal Boot Floppy" took me into Windows.
The only time that failed was when I'd moved the internal HDD from the internal IDE controller to a PCI to IDE RAID controller card, and failed to re-initialise the drive [re-partition & re-format, and restore an image].
When I did that I was back up and running.

I believe you haven't yet tried a "Universal Boot Disk" [floppy or optical] with the 8 choices.
You should always have one of those within arms reach of your PC. :)
And the Recovery Console installed to the HDD.
And a recent image backup handy.

What stage are you at now?

[Sylvander]

Which file system is in use on your PC's Windows partition?

ErnieK pointed out when we were chatting on the phone that the boot floppy uses DOS, and that won't be able to access files/folders on an partition using NTFS. :(

Haven't managed to think of a way to make it do that. :confused:

[Paul Komski]

An MSDOS boot floppy wont be able to see NTFS data without NTFS for DOS or similar. The "Universal Boot Disk with the 8 choices" if it is a WinXP QuickBoot diskette (or an equivalent ISO such as provided by me earlier) is not affected by NTFS partitions since it has an NT boot sector and boot files; it is not designed to access data but to boot a system. Terabyte Unlimited provide a special DOS utility to allow boot.ini to be edited and BiNG can access all files on all FAT or NTFS partitions from its Partition Managment section.

[Sylvander]

That's good news. :)
So the boot disk will be able to boot into Windows even when on an NTFS partition. :cool:
I mistakenly thought it wouldn't be able to do that if it couldn't access the Windows folder and files.

Managed to find this which might be useful:
Avira NTFS4DOS Personal 1.9 Free Download (http://www.softlow.com/windows/utilities/misc/free/avira-ntfs4dos-personal.html).
What it does:
Creates a 2 MB RAMdrive.
Copies command.com to that.
Allows DOS access to NTFS partitions.
Can run chkdsk on all partitions; FAT & NTFS.
Can defrag NTFS partitions.

Got to originally from here (http://www.free-av.com/en/products/index.html).

[bassman]

Boy, somethings up with my e-mail alerts again. I have missed half of this conversation.
Anyway, here is where things stand. Drive was NTFS, I was able to get system started with Paul's disk but any selection made brought me to a black screen indefinitely (I left it for over half hour), I used a friends XP disk to be able to use RC, WAS able to rebuild MBR, WAS able to repair boot, was never able to see anything on this drive so therefore unable to access it. Have now reformatted and installed ME (only available fully functioning, complete OS I have at the moment) and then upgraded to XP. Machine is working fine for the moment and will certainly get a new HDD if this happens again. This is the second time this machine has had this type of issue (same prime/master HDD) and my son failed to completely save all lost data on his prime/slave drive so we did not want to wipe it just yet. Hopefully she with live long enough to get that done this time ;)
I want to thank you guys again for your help. I just wish I would have been successful in using it. :cool: