XP does a Vista...

Whizzkid_amer

Seemingly randomly, my XP computer has screwed up big time. When booting normally, after going through everything right before the "Windows" loading thing comes up, the screen is blank for a while, and then says:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

When I try booting up from the disk, it says:

Windows could not start because of an error in the software.
Please report this problem as:
load needed DLLs for kernel.
Please contact your support person to report this problem.

I had a similar incident once with a relatives Vista PC. I ended up having to boot up from some system recovery linux platform and delete some files and stuff which never worked until a repairman came in saying you shouldn't have deleted the files and then managed to fix it, saving the files, but in a way I'm not sure of. Any ideas?

If you need vital information just ask, but this is purely an OS problem right? Unless the hard disk has messed up?

mtrox

Never completely rule out hardware. In fact that ntoskrnl.exe can just be a bad keyboard. It's the first thing to try with that error. Might also explain why you can't boot from the disk either.

Whizzkid_amer

I tried with a different USB keyboard and no keyboard, but didn't work. I might add that the computer sounds a bit different, in terms of fan sounds? I'm gonna try and dig out an old PS/2 keyboard, thats worked in the past.
Sorry for the delay in replying.