ntoskrnl.exe missing or corrupt - Win2k

[troubleshooter]

Hi all,

I've just installed Win2k onto my new machine:

Duron 700 (only old bit)
256 Mb DDR Ram
80 Gb Maxtor Diamondmax 9
A-Tek Nvidia Gforce2 MX400
Gigabyte GA7DXE
Unex ND010W 10/100 Nic

It intermittently halts on boot with the message:

"ntoskrnl.exe mssing or corrupt" please reinstall file etc etc.

However, it sometimes fixes itself on a reboot.
When it first happened, I tried repairing with a repair disk after booting off the CD, and that worked.d

The second time it happened and I tried the repair disk, it didn't work.

But 3 reboots later and all is well.

I also tried replacing the file, but that made no difference. It just seems to be an intermittent fault. But a very annoying one.

I have seen posts on other forums about this, but mainly about the file not being there or being corrupt, or the boot.ini not being in order.

However, since it will rectify on a reboot, this would not seem to be the case.

I have also read that the solution may be to reinstall win2k, but that's a bit drastic. I've just had to do just that after my first 80Gb Maxtor committed suicide after 2 days of use.

Then there's the question of why I can't get my NIC to work at 100Mb, but that's another thread.

If anyone has any insight into this problem, it would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance,

Troubleshooter

[troubleshooter]

BTW, the CD was SP2.
I installed SP3, but it happened before and after the update.

Troubleshooter

[bailey]

I suspect a bad stick of ram

[HAL9000]

I second bad RAM.... I had a very similar problem on a business machine about a month ago.

[troubleshooter]

Just ran simmtest.com 's DocMemory.

Ran it with every option ticked, for 15 loops on the burn-in.

It passed 15 times.

I then rebooted and got the ntoskrnl.exe missing message.

Took 3 reboots to get 2000 running.

You still think it could be the RAM?

[KHT]

I had nearly the same problem with a 2000 Pro machine and was not able to correct the problem. I booted to a dos floppy and ran the ReadNTFS utility and found that the ntoskrnl file was deleted. Using a recovery utility I restored the file but was still unable to boot. Even after creating several NT boot floppies, no luck. I tried the recovery console with an ERD and even the recovery install option.

MS knowledge database attributes it to an incorrect boot.ini file, trying to start an NT4 system on a boot directory over 4G, if McAfee GroupShield Exchange program is installed, plus a few others. None of which were an issue I was dealing with.

I was able to recover important data and had to do a re-install of the OS. The problem happened immediately after my client installed a HP G85 multi printer and received errors and rebooted. I personally am convinced it was the HP software that caused the problem. Anyone who reads any of my posts most likely has had a gutfull of hearing about HP printer software problems, but my suspicions have been verified from a Senior tech from a worldwide company who documents in detail system problems and confirmed that approximately 50% of their problems are linked to HP software.

Whether this relates to your problems or not I don`t know. just thought I`d pass that along.

I am interested however after reading the replies, that bailey and HAL9000 suggested bad RAM. I admit I never gave this a thought and would be interested as to what led either of them to this conclusion. I`m not discounting this but interested as to how a bad stick can cause an error with a missing boot file.

[killjoy11]

I have also experienced this problem.
P4 2.8
512 MB DDR RAM
80 GB Maxtor
IO Magic MX400 64MB
ECS 648FX-A

After I put it all together, I loaded WINXP. Everything was working until I shut the PC down. When I turned it back on it started giving me error messages right as Windows was coming up. I had to restart, then go to safe mode, then restart from there in order for Windows to come up properly. Had to do this everytime I shut down the computer(no problems if I just restart PC). Formatted Hard drive, then loaded WIN2K. Same problem different error message.

"ntoskrnl.exe missing of corrupt" just like troubleshooter.

After I read this thread I decidied to change my memory module. I was currently using a PQC (Generic Brand) module, and switched it with a Corsair module. It started up with no problem. Shut it down about five more times until I was satisfied that the problem was gone.
Now I have PC loaded with WINXP and still no error messages. Thanks for your suggestion baily and HAL9000.

[andyms18a]

if its not the ram it may be the IDE cable or even the IDE socket on the motherboard or a bad hard drive

[mikela78]

I just found this forum when I was searching for a solution to this very problem.

The problem platform is:
Celeron "Mendocino" processor
HP Pavilion branded motherboard, i810 chipset
196MB PC100 SDRAM
3-year-old Trigem Hard Drive, freshly reformatted with NTFS
Windows 2000 SP4, freshly installed and updated

The "NTOKRNL.EXE is missing or corrupt" message occurs intermittently upon startup, but seems to have some time dependence associated with its oterwise apparent randomness, making me suspect faulty hardware. The problem was not solved by copying an NTOKRNL.EXE from a working system, and boot.ini was in perfect condition. The problem appeared to disappear when I swapped out memory--I started the system without incident four times in succession--but the problem crept back after that. My first suspicion at this point is the hard drive, consisdring its age. I ran the Win2K bad sector error-checking routine (it this at all useful?) and it did not report any problems, but I'm running out of hardware-related explanations. I may eventually test the hard drive on a different system to totally eliminate other hardware causes.

[andyms18a]

try a new ide lead all so change the 4pin power lead from the power supply to the hard drive try and use a diffrent cabble branch and go into your bios and set quick boot to disabled