Computer people... help please!!

[Novel]

OK, all you computer gurus... I had a computer go down some months ago and decided today to attempt to correct the issue.

This is what it tells me as it boots up, That Windows cannot start because this file is missing or corrupted and I need to reinstall it.

This is the file:
<Windows root>/system32/ntoskrnl.exe

OK, well, I have my original Windows disc, but, not really sure how to pull that one file off and reinstall it...

I have some ideas, but really don't want to lose all the info on the hard drive.

Any help would be appreciated.

Also, any ideas on how this file was corrupted or deleted?

[wehkah]

What windows operating system is it? XP?

You can boot from the system disk and do a repair if it's xp.

Dictating from Wayne....

[Novel]

OK, I should have just called you and Wayne in the first place...
OK, when I put the CD back in and boot from that, it asks me if I want to recover, I say yes, and then it takes me to a C prompt... after that I don't know what to do!

[Novel]

I ran a chkdsk, and it says there is an error... real helpful xp is... or am I not choosing the correct option!! I hate pcs some day!

[MazieDog]

Do what you've been doing, but when you get to the C prompt, type this in:

cd c:\windows\system32
copy "..\driver cache\i386\ntoskrnl.exe"

If it asks to overrite the file, push Y for yes and hit enter.

If it says it can't find the file, type this in:

cd "c:\windows\driver cache\i386"
expand sp1.cab -F:ntoskrnl.exe c:\windows\system32

Again, if you're asked if you want to overwrite the file, hit Y and press enter. Then, all you'll need to do is reboot and your system should boot up just fine.

Hope this helps.

[Dogsareme]

Reformat it.

You can do it yourself by going into the computer (safety mode) as you are rebooting it up. Don't let it get to the windows screen. You press F8 to go into safety mode to reformat it.

Or if you are not sure how to do it, just bring it to a computer store.

[Novel]

If I reformat, won't I lose all the info on the hard drive??

Thanks Mazie... that sounds alot easier than what the Microsoft guy asked me to do. He tried one command from the recovery prompt and then told me I wouldn't be able to do it that way and gave me an article about taking things from this computer and taking it to my other one... Very involved and he told me to be careful or I could screw up both computers.

LOL... I keep wanting to cut and paste.. silly me... kind of hard when the other computer is in the other room! LOL!

[Novel]

Justin-- I tried both, it gave me "access is denied" just like it did for the command that the microsoft guy gave me.
I'm giving up, but I am putting it aside for tonight I think...

I'm going to listen to bluegrass and do Suduko and pretend that my computer is running and that I'm not going to have to buy another safe to keep all of my dead hard drives in that I desperately want to bring back to life because it has 1000s of irreplacable pictures on it!!

BB suggested I save all my pics to disc... It's not a bad idea, too bad this dinosaur that I'm on now doesn't have a rewritable drive. Guess I'll just put another new hard drive in the fast computer and start all over... sigh.

This other "new" computer is a dell, and I hate it!! I have 4 Compaqs and have never had a problem with any of them, ever. This Dell has gone through two hard drives in 3 years, and has a 3.5" that has never worked. I used to call Dell, they'd walk me through some steps, the drive would work once and then not again. I hate that computer, but it's 10x faster than any of my others...

Can you hear me ranting!! Jeepers, time for some bluegrass!

[wehkah]

If you reformat...yes you will loose everything on that drive. What I suggest you do is get a usb2 to ide enclosure. So if that didn't confuse you... it's basically an enclosure that you can put your internal hardrive into to make it external. Then all you have to do is hook it up to a usb port on a working computer (with a cd burner preferably) and you can take any file off there that you are going to need. OR you can take your hard drive and install it as a slave drive in any computer and do the same thing but it would require you to open up both computers to do so.

Wayne says that some mfg's do some funky things partaining with their system files but he can't tell you exactly what to do unless he can see how it's set up. He said that what Justin had said was correct and should have worked. He also said that you could just try when you get to the c prompt to type in "fix boot" and see if that works. We'll get it to work for ya don't worry!!!

[Novel]

I gave up on it last night, but today I'm going to try again, but later...

I've never had much luck with making a drive a slave. I'm never able to get the computer to recognize both. I don't know if I'm not getting all the little switches set right or what...

Oh, and just to top it all off, While I'm trying to get this sorted out yesterday, my computer is now showing me another error, from the Dell part of it now, saying that my hard drive is not performing correctly and I should back up my data... UGH! That's what it told me last time before it went down. Grr... Going to go buy a new hard drive today I think, and see if I can find that doo dad you were talking about wehkah, and at least get the other one going again.

[mulroony]

Novel - (Sitting in my IT chair...literally) The ide adapter wehkah mentioned works very well. I have had a lot of success using them to get data off drives. (They are not all the pricey either)

If you want to one other thing you can usually do is simply install a second copy of windows w/out formatting. You will not be ale to get to any of your programs, but you should be able to get to any files. When going through the install process instead of selecting repair, you go w/ install and just put it in a folder called c:\windows1 (instead of the normal c:\)

That or if you want you could send me the drive and I can burn the images to a dvd, and send it back. Chalk it up to asking you for a favorable reference when I try to adopt a weim

[Spiritus]

We are almost at the point of NEEDING to buy a new computer too. We must face it, six years is OLD in computer speak. I am praying that my registry stays intact long enough to get a new one. We've bought software specifically to fix our registry, and to date, it has worked. However, knowing that the system is unstable, short of reformatting and start from scratch, there's not much else we can do. I also have photos like crazy on this hard drive - and no burner. I also have a second hard drive in this computer, but it is full... mainly photos. Do we need a burner? Heck YES!

Over the last three years, I have had to rebuild this dang thing at least once a year - but I've had room on my second hard drive to put the critical data I have on this hard drive, like the back-up copies of the websites I design. Now I don't have that room.

I have, in the past, just installed a second Windows. It basically (I think) partitions the hard drive. Once it's installed, you have a choice of booting up from Windows 1 or Windows 2. It's a pain in the arse, but it's a safe way to not loose files. For me, it's a temporary fix - just temporary because it slows down boot up time and is basically a pain. Once you get it running, if you have a burner, burn your photos and other pertinent info, then get around to rebuilding from scratch (format, reinstall everything). If you don't have a burner, you could always buy an external one. They're really not that expensive. We NEED to do that.... or break down and buy a new computer....

Dell Canada has some really good specials going on right now.... LOL.

[mulroony]

Spiritus do out and get a usb flash drive. They are relatively cheap now (around $20 for a gig). It will make transferring a lot easier then going through and burning everything.

And IMO Dell makes the best consumer grade PC's (but apple is making a run at it, and doing a good job). 6 years... That thing has to be on its last leg

[princessjodi]

I feel for ya Novel...sucks having computer probs! Sorry...but whenever I have computer probs I bat my eyelashes at my BF and he fixes it for me...not sure what I am going to do when he moves to Boston this week (I am in San Diego)...

Anyways...I do have to agree with Mulroony about Dell...I have had mine for about 5 or 6 years now and haven't had much of any problems. Only problems I have had were 'operator trouble'...lol

[Novel]

Thank you everyone for so much help! I really appreciate it!
Well, I am not sold on Dells. This computer is a Dell and the only computer I've ever had numerous problems with. It came to us not working at 100% and has gotten worse!

Mulroony- This is what I would like to try this evening, tell me if it's feasible. I'd like to take this hard drive out of the computer that I'm currently working on and install it in the Dell. Fire up the Dell and use its faster processor to then burn the files onto the burners I have in the Dell. Then, get an ide adapter to then pull the info off the hard drive I took out of the Dell, that is having the issues, and then reformat that drive and start over again with that drive as the internal drive on the Dell.
I have two major issues. This computer that I've been using for a few months has about 6 gigs of pics on it that need to be stored on a secondary media so I can start sleeping again at night. It has nothing but a 3.5". Obviously not a realistic data storage option.
The other hard drive has a corrupted Windows, but it looks like I have options there.

Final question. I have another hard drive that we've had in the safe for about a year and a half. It was the original hard drive in the Dell. It supposedly lost it's power source. Would the ide be able to pull info off of that? Or still no because of the whole power supply problem. Any recommendations on people to pull that info off. We've received some quotes but all seem pretty high.