Help!! 911 in Win 2000 for Squaddie.

[Tip87th]

Hey All.

A squadmate is about at wits end with this mess. Here's his post below....


I was running Roxio DVD program that was generating a MPEG file then burning it on a DVD. I let it run while I was sleeping and when I woke the DVD was playing, all seemed OK at this point. So I rebooted from Start button, waited awhile, about 30 secs later it popped up that there was some program running and did I want to wait or just shutdown. I choose to wait and 10 secs later it shutdown. (That happens sometimes, usually Norton shutting down.)

It ran through post screen then when the screen is black with progress bar on the bottom saying loading Windows 2000. That's were the story ends. Right under the progress bar says: <windows 2000 root>system32ntoskrnl.exe File is missing or corrupt.

I trying everything, changing boot options like Safe Mode, Restore to last good Config, and everyone on that list. Then I figured this files in Windows C: drive so reinstall Windows. I can get to install Windows 2000 but it reboots after installing floppys and goes thru the samething, same message.

So then I firgured, well I change boot options and boot frm Windows CD. Well, samething, no good.

Now I think, screw it, I'll buy a new hard drive that I was planning on getting but not at this momment and put it in and install a new windows on the new hard drive then transfer what I needed to save off the old one as a slave.

Installed new hard drive and disk program for Maxtor and ran that. Setup for windows 2000 blah blah blah. Maxtor program reboots and BOOM!! Same message!!!! HOW IS THAT IF THE FILE MISSING OR CORRUPT IS ON THE HARD DRIVE IN C: !!! There is no C: yet!! So I smashed the, no that's what I wanted to do.

So I fired up my old trust snail rig here and started google'n for info. I found things like I needed to edit boot.ini and find 3 files on another system with the same operating system. I found the 2 of the 3 but the boot.ini I don't see in my folder on this PC. Even if I want to install these 2 files to try it I don't think I can get a DOS prompt (forget how to do that it was ages ago that I used DOS).

So I'm kinda lost and pee'd off. I'm real good with PC's most of the time this ones got me sick. I saw a post that Mcafee has been know to cause this but I'm think it was the Roxio DVD program or a new Trogan got in some how. Norton is up to date as of that day. I ran full virus disk scan with no bugs forever, don't know what happened really.

If you have any ideas let me know.

BTW I cleared CMOS also before I installed new hard drive. (not really related to problem just threw that out there)

How can I get DOS prompt on before Windows starts?

I've run through all the ms support until cross-eyed. And it looks like he has too. Any suggestions?

Tip