Corrupt boot? Win XP pro wont boot anymore...help please?

[superwillis]

First, I have a Dell Dimension 8400:

P4 3.4Ghz
1GB RAM
360GB (2 x 160GB RAID 0)

I have a weird problem. I turned on my comptuer a few days ago, and the boot process was verrrry sloww...took 10 mins just to get past the DELL BIOS logo screen. After another 10 mins or so, there was a black screen with the message (or something to the effect of):

Windows cannot start because the file .../system32/ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt.

So, I figured a boot file was corrupted...easily fixed with the Win XP CD, right? So i booted it from CD (which took FOREVER), only to find that "Setup could not locate any harddrives", so I couldnt repair my installation.

Then, when I pressed F3 to quit setup, it rebooted, and all of a sudden, it works!!! It was fast, booted into windows normally.

When I booted into Windows, I backed up all of my important data to DVD and CD. Now heres the weird part. My computer will boot fine twice or so, but the third time I will recieve the same error (even with my Win XP CD in the drive...i havent taken it out since). Then, I boot from the CD, quit setup, and it works after the mandatory reboot. What is going on?

How can i fix this annoying problem? Is my harddrive corrupt? I mean, once I'm in windows, I can access everything fine...seems like a boot sector or something is bad, I dunno. Thing is, I cant access Windows setup because it wont recognize my harddrives either...

As usual, Dell tech support was a waste of time ("Did you try rebooting, sir?")

HELP PLEASE!!!!

[not important]

I had the same problem a couple of weeks ago on the PC in my shop. It did the no boot thing once every few days. My problem turned out to be a bad IDE cable. If I wiggled the connection at the HDD, which I discovered completely by accident, the PC would boot. I replaced the cable and haven't had the problem since then.

[macko72]

Hello,

If you do a repair installation of Windows (XP?), you won't have to re-install any of your apps. However, you will have to install all of your windows hotfixes and updates. You shouldn't have to do a repair install, however.

You can use the Recovery Console on your Windows CD .

Missing or corrupt ntoskrnl.exe file

If the ntoskrnl.exe file is corrupt or missing this can also generate the error. To restore this file follow the below steps.

Insert the Microsoft Windows XP CD. Note: If you have a recovery CD or a restore CD and not a Microsoft Windows XP CD it is likely the below steps will not resolve your issue.

1.Reboot the computer, as the computer is starting you should see a message to press any key to boot from the CD. When you see this message press any key.

2.In the Microsoft Windows XP setup menu press the R key to enter the recovery console.

3.Select the operating system you wish to fix, and then enter the administrator password.

4.Type expand d:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ c:\windows\system32

5.You will then be prompted if you wish to overwrite the file type Y and press enter to overwrite the file.

6.Type exit to reboot the computer.

[superwillis]

yea, but I cant get to the recovery console. When I press 'R' at the setup screen, it says that "Setup could not find any harddrives". So, I can't repair my installation.

[superwillis]

hmm, bad IDE cable? I'll check it out and let you know. Thanx anyways.

[macko72]

If setup can't find you HDD then is something wrong with IDE or HDD, you can download diagnostic tool from manufacturer of yours HDD!!!

[glc]

If you have not deleted it, the Dell diagnostic partition contains full system diagnostics. There's a way to access it with a F-key from within the bios setup, call Dell for instructions. You can also boot with the Dell Resource CD to run diagnostics from the CD.