I challenge you to figure this out

[357mag]

Several weeks ago I came home and found my computer off. Now I always leave it on, so I was wondering why it was off. Turns out I must have had a power surge or something cuz my outlet was dead and my surge protector was sparking. Well I went in the basement and flipped the circuit breaker and got power back in my computer room. I was planning on reformatting my drive and reinstalling Win 2000 so I did. During the setup program the format did not work and Windows said the disk may be damaged, so I concluded that I may have a bad hard disk due to the power surge, so I put in a new one thinking all okay. During the setup program after setup was done copying files and tried to restart the computer it said this:

Windows 2000 could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Please re-install a copy of the above file

Well I was dumbfounded. I could not understand why I was getting this error message as I have reinstalled Windows lots of times before and never got an error message. So I brought my computer to the local shop and Roger said it may be bad RAM so he put in new RAM and tried it and it started fine, no error messages. But when I brought it home and tried booting it I got the same error message. I brought it back and they tried it again and it started fine for them. I decided to finish the Win 2000 setup program while at the shop cuz I was scared that I would not be able to complete it at home. Well I got it home plugged it in and there comes back the error message. I told Roger about it again and he said drop it off. The next day he told me he installed the motherboard drivers and rebooted it about 20 times and it started flawlessly. I've had it home now about a week and a half and only restarted it once(after I had to upon finishing a software install) and I thought that maybe all was well. Well no. I just got done running a Live DVD of Linux and when I tried to reboot my computer from the hard drive where Windows is installed I got that error message again.

I'm at my wit's end and nobody can understand why when I plug it in at the shop it appears to start just fine, yet when I try to restart it at home I get that error message. I'm thinking that during that power surge my motherboard simply got damaged, but if that is true, then that error message should have shown up at the shop too, and it never has. I'm thinking of switching over to Linux, but I don't know if I could successfully install it if I'm getting this error message, if something is damaged inside. I tried booting into safe mode, still got the error message, I hit F8 and highlighted "boot from last known good configuration", but that didn't work either. I don't want to buy a new computer because basically mine is rebuilt with mostly all newer components. What do you think?

[glc]

Replace your surge protector and consider replacing the power supply.

[Cricket]

You might want to have the electrical wiring in your house checked too.

Cricket

[bailey]

the surge protector did what it supposed to do, the MOV's that are in it are designed to short the voltage spike to ground to protect your computer, they are a one time device, as they self distruct when they do there job, that is why it was sparking, it must be replaced. to continue useing it will cause damage to your system.

[RenamonXP]

If it works at the shop and not at home you may want to consider the fact that it may be a wiring issue at home. I'm not 100% sure on this because it could be any number of problems. Could be the power protector or your power supply. Why you wouldnt be seeing your kernl file is beyond me. I had that problem once but it was because I had modified something durring boot up. And it was an easy fix.

[footfikinmasta]

Ya checking your houses power might be a good idea. I don't know what exactly the house power can be doing to it. A couple of years ago I had a brown out and all of a sudden my computer monitor turned off and you can hear the hard drive running real slow and at a low speed. If you have access to a multimeter you can start maybe by checking the voltage and making sure you have a neutral and ground for starters. The circle is the ground, the left slot is your neutral and the slot on your left is your hot. if you need anymore info on how you go about checking for each one let me know. They also have devices you can hook up to a outlet that can scan for likea day or two and tell you the voltages. good luck

the attachment is a pict of a outlet