Windows not booting

[Wedge]

Having major problems on another PC.

On startup, the system goes straight to the following error message:

-------

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

-------

However, there appears to be no way of re-installing it, if you hit enter the system just reboots. It is going straight to this error message and is not giving the options for safe mode etc.

I have tried to reinstall windows but it says it can't do it without formatting, and there is data on the PC that needs to be retrieved. I can get into the repair console but don't have a clue what do do once in there?

Advice please? Many thanks in advance.

[Superpilot]

Within the Recovery Console

do a CHKDSK /F on it. The few times I've hit this case, it's been able to fix the problem with no data loss.

[Oggin Aviator]

Getting desperate now. Machine now continually keeps booting - wont even load Windows.

If I get the recovery disk to work and reinstall windows, will the contents of My Documents get binned?

Also will I have to reinstall all the drivers for all the pheripherals and reinstall my WLAN etc etc.

Not happy :(

Cheers for any advice.

Oggin

[Stripholderloader]

This should do the trick.................

http://www.webuser.co.uk/cgi-bin/forums/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=PC&Number=116740&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=7&o=93&part=

Regards
SHL

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Ogster

The answer to your questions is no and no if you do a repair install.

Follow the advice here (http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm)

Can you boot into Windows long enough to make an XP SP2 slipstreamed install CD?

:cool:

TOG

[Oggin Aviator]

Toxteth

Thx for the advice - tried that no joy - ran chkdsk which wouldnt work said large errors on drive or something.

Then went into BIOS - hardrive not being detected - unplugged everything to see if it was the PSU on the blink, tried again no joy (but no diagnosis on the PSU). So really frustrated now.

How can I check that the PSU is working when I cant boot into Win - the details in the BIOS show very similar core values to those required.

HDD is 2 120GB Seagate Barracuda in RAID 0

At one point I have reset defaults in BIOS, then at another I have flashed it to a later version. If after doing all this is there something I need to do to get the BIOS to see the HDD or the RAID stuff - I dont know much about this.

If the HDD are duff, how easy is it just to replace them (in RAID 0), format, partition then install the OS again? Or is there something else I can do before having to hand it over to a repairman?

cheers

Oggin

Edit to say tried Win XP reinstall again and now the stup program says there are no hard drives installed - even though the whole system was up and running fine yesterday.

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Try booting from a Linux Live CD distro and see if that can see your drives.

If you don't have one, and as I suspect you're at EGDR, PM me and I'll drop one in the internal mail to you.

:cool:

TOG

[Oggin Aviator]

TOG

Thanks for the suggestion however I am not at EGDR at the moment. I might try that Linux suggestion if someone at work has a disk.

Alternatively, as I have 2 drives in RAID 0 would it be possible just to hook up the drives singly one by one as IDE to see if the PC "sees" them in case just one of them is duff? If one is recognised and then one is not (or vice versa) it would tell me that the unrecognised one is fried however I could save some money by reformatting the good one and reinstalling the OS?

Dont know what else to do now apart from trek to the local computer shop and give them money to fix it !! :uhoh:

Oggin

[TR4A]

"Windows NT Could Not Start...Ntoskrnl.exe" error message

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/124550/EN-US/

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477/EN-US/

[stickyb]

It sounds to me very much like the connection to the discs is broken, ie hardware type issue, the discs can't be read.

It could be faulty discs, or it could be the the raid controller.

Go into the raid bios setup, and check everything is ok in there. I strongly suspect that will tell you what is wrong.

[Terraplaneblues]

"Edit to say tried Win XP reinstall again and now the stup program says there are no hard drives installed - even though the whole system was up and running fine yesterday"


I suspect that when you attempt to boot from the XP CD there is at some point a question - do you want to load other drivers? answer is yes, the driver for the raid array. That may be why it cannot see your HDD's. Is the raid array driven from a card or motherboard? Mine is card type and XP requires the driver to see the disks when booting from XP CD.

I had similar problem when a file corrupted and XP CD could only see an old installation on my backup (IDE) HDD's until I loaded the raid driver.

There are articles on the knowledge base that deal with boot.ini which will help you, they may well be the ones linked above.

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Ogster

After you flashed the bios and set default settings did you remember to go back into the cmos setup and reset "SATA AS RAID - ENABLE."

When you do your Windows repair, just after you have booted from the install CD you have to press F6 and reinstall the RAID drivers and reconfigure the RAID array.

If you can get a Linux Live CD distro (try Mepis, Knoppix, Suse or Jollix) they all come with SATA drivers and at the very least you will be able to access the data on your disks. Very easy to do.

:cool:

TOG

[Oggin Aviator]

This is the problem post BIOS flashing I think. I will try and reinstall the SATA drivers and then see if the Win repair reinstall sees them. Can I do this from the Win recovery CD or do it prior to that as the BIOS flashes up ie just afer POST. TOG suggests the former - I'll try that I guess. I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for all the tips.

Oggin

edit to say there is no "SATA enable" within the BIOS setup however there is a seperate DOS SATA configuration program. So what is the timeline - SATA Drivers / SATA Config / Win XP recovery or something else?

[Toxteth O'Grady]

This (http://www.techsupportforum.com/showthread.php?threadid=9888) may help.

Unusual not to have SATA config in the bios. What's your motherboard?

Anyway, have a go at putting in your Windows CD. Quite early on you will see a prompts at the bottom of the creen to press F6 to instal SCSI and RAID. Select and it should prompt you to put in your SATA DOS floppy. See how that goes.

:cool:

TOG

[Oggin Aviator]

On the lappy downloaded the SATA Adapter drivers from the MB website, put them onto a floppy, booted up desktop, hit F6, loaded all that then did a Windows repair reinstallation. All working fine. Managed to back up to CD everything of any importance (something I should being doing fairly regularly - learnt my lesson there); Subsequent full CHKDSK which took about 2 hours (240 Gig HDD) found no errors. So hopefully ok now. Bizarrely the only thing I lost was the IE favourites folder (no great shakes - needed a clean out anyway) and the icons on the taskbar just right of the Start button.

So thanks for all the help from everyone, esp TOG :ok:

Oggin

p.s. Anyone know how to get back the "Show Desktop" icon that normally resides just to the right of the Start button on the taskbar?

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Oggy

Glad you got it sorted. Next time you're in the Datum I'll have an Orange Whip!!

Top tip m8, buy yourself a cheap(ish) 160 gig IDE hard disk, Acronis True Image 8 and run scheduled incremental back-up images.

You'll then sweat a little less at the next techno-crisis.

:cool:

TOG

[Oggin Aviator]

TOG

I won't be in the Datum for about a year - cryptic but I'm not around at the mo. Are there any unaltered roofing tiles still there? And what colour is the SK hull at the mo?

That tip about a backup IDE drive is a good idea think I'll get one. I take it just add it as a slave to one of the CD drives, load the software and hey presto?

Cheers

Oggin

p.s. wasnt Toxeth O'Grady a character from the Young Ones - TOG mentioned by Vvyan as the author of a reference book whilst Rik et al were on the train to University Challenge?

[Toxteth O'Grady]

OA

Since your using SATA RAID your mobo should have at least four other IDE P-ATA channels available.

You should be able to set up a spare P-ATA hard disk as 1st IDE Master and if you've only got one optical drive I would set that as 2nd IDE Master. i.e. have two ide cables using each mobo ide connector. That will leave both slave channels free.

Prolly take some tweakin around in the bios to get this set-up, but straightforward enough to do.

Sadly the Datum has been infected by the deadly virus Fisheadius Commanderitis and now has serious "decor!"

p.s. wasnt Toxeth O'Grady a character from the Young Ones - TOG mentioned by Vvyan as the author of a reference book whilst Rik et al were on the train to University Challenge?

Read my profile!

:cool:

TOG

[Oggin Aviator]

Should have read your profile!!

Shame about the Datum, however in my experience that place goes through a transformation every 3 years or so, so it may revert to type in the future.

Mobo and Windows now saying the CPU is an Athlon 1100 running at 1.09. There is an Athlon 3200+ Barton in there.
Is this because:

a) I flashed the BIOS and the new one doesnt recognise the chip. If so can this be rectified and also if so is the PC running slower?

b) At some point the chip has overheated and now only works at a slower speed? I did take the heatsink and fan off the chip a few weeks ago to find a shed load of clogged dust covering about a third of the heatsink. A browse of Ebay may be in order!

cheers

Oggin

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Juat go back into the bios and reset your clock speed. Probably dropped to safe value of 100MHz (or is it 200?) when you flashed the bios. Need to reset it to 200MHz (or 400)

:cool:

TOG

[Oggin Aviator]

It does actually say "100 Mhz" on the initial boot up screen. I went into the BIOS to try and investigate this but could find nowhere to change it. Any thoughts? Does this affect the speed the memory is working at? Currently PC 3200 DDR 400 in there and it appears to be slightly slower than before (due CPU or memory ?????).

MOBO is an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe.

Cheers

Oggin

edit to say found it by downloading and scrutinising the Mobo user manual. Should be able to change the CPU external frequency setting to 200 Mhz which will give a FSB speed of 400 Mhz next time I access the BIOS. Should be detected automatically but somehow hasnt, maybe due to a CPU overheat.

[Fletchers Left Boot]

To answer your earlier question -

right-click on an empty part of the taskbar and then click 'Properties'
Then check the box marked "Show quick launch"

FLB

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Should be detected automatically but somehow hasnt, maybe due to a CPU overheat.

Not necessarily. These things are made user definable in the bios to allow overclocking etc.

Download CPU-Z (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php)

It'll allow you to check in realtime in Windows what speed your CPU and Memory are running at.

:cool:

TOG

[Oggin Aviator]

My PC is back to its old tricks. Basically it is dumping the SATA drivers on shutdown therefore the system cannot find the drives during boot up. So I get boot up problems, ending in "Disk Boot Failure, please insert setup disk ..."

So in goes the Win XP CD, hit F6, load the SATA drivers, then exit setup with no reinstall, then reboot into Windows ok. Every time.

So how do fix this snag ie the BIOS(?) dumping the SATA drivers every time power goes off the PC. The disks themselves working in RAID 0, once recognised, are fine.

Oggin

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Deja-vu ;)

Did you remember to go back into the bios and set the SATA RAID as first boot device instead of CD-ROM?

:cool:

TOG

[Oggin Aviator]

Yep - from the PC manufacturers website is says set SCSI as first boot device - so I have. Post load up of SATA drivers this works fine. Its just after a full shutdown to zero electricity then restart up it wont recognise the SATA drive. :confused:

[Toxteth O'Grady]

With the Silicon Image controller already plugged in and the driver already installed. Follow the instructions below to update SiI 3112 driver.


1. Click Windows [Start], then move the mouse to stay on [Settings].

2. Click [Control Panel].

3. Double Click [System].

4. Click [Hardware] tab.

5. Click [Device Manager].

6. Right Click [Silicon Image SiI3112 SATARaid Controller]
under [SCSI and RAID Controllers], then click [Properties].

7. Click [Driver] tab.

8. Click [Update Driver].

9. Choose [Install from a list or specific location].

10. Click [Next].

11. Choose [Include this location in the search].

12. Click [Browse] to specify the file path where the driver is,

e.g. "X:\Drivers\Si3112"( X is the drive you put the support CD).

13. Click [Next].

14. Click [Finish].

[Oggin Aviator]

Yup, did that already. Same problem :{