My friends PC won't boot b/c of the ntoskrnl.exe error. Windows preloaded (so No CD, that sucks). No Floppy drive. Can't get into safemode or last known good configuration. Any suggestions, short of a restore??? Thanks

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/... Jim R

Thanks for the reply Jim, but without the windows CD, I can't do alott of what's on that pages, read it earlier and tried some, but can't do the important ones with a CD..

http://www.ubcd4win.com/ This may help, but you need another computer to burn the CD. A boot floppy would not help if your HD partition(s) were formatted NTFS. Unless a HD diag utility could fix it. Was there a folder on the HD where the manufacturer copied the Windows install files to? I really hate them doing that - there should be a law :-) If you do get it up and running, research on how to burn those files to a bootable CD, so in the future... USB floppy drives are fairly inexpensive and come in handy for laptops. Search Engines Are Your Friends ☺ Morpheus: There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. "The Matrix"

Anything going on before the problem arrived? Problem has few possible causes - one often overlooked... virus problems... What file format is the C: Partition? The info via the computerhope link covers it in an adequate/basic way - and how to fix... If you can access the boot.ini, post a copy here? Likewise if you can access the c: partition - via suitable boot-disk, you can simply replace that file. Also if you can acess the drive via a boot-disk... there may be an i386 folder on the drive. If so that file within that folder - again from which you could copy/trasnfer it over to c: where it should be (inside the system32 folder)?

Zenith: Have you used this before?? Looks like it might do the trick, But I still need an Xp disk or find a "Installed File" folder... Trvlr: Just said something about "Internet Connection Lost" and after a re-boot, this error message came up.... Right now, I can't get to Anything.. I'm hopeing I can get a UBCD built and it will get me into the PC.. Thanks for your Replies... I post the latest developments... Thanks again....

mmm - when you do get back in. be sure to run a FULL virus scan, and also perhaps an AdAware and SpyBot Search & Destroy scan. This mainly to ensure you are clean of any possible nasties that may have produced the problem...? Might not hurt to run a Trend on-line scan too; two different scans more to ensure sysem is clean.