PCA Forums

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop m#M55-S139 with XP Home Edition installed. I do not have the original install discs or recovery discs. It will not boot up and I get the following error message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Is there a work-around for this? It worked fine initially. It has not been run in several years and I was attempting to load updates, etc.
Thanks in advance.

I'd say 95% of the time when this happens, it's because you have a bad sector or sectors on the hard drive.

Most of the time I can fix a problem like this by running Spinrite level 2 on the hard drive (this repairs the bad sector if possible), then running a CHKDSK on the drive from the recovery console or a BartPE CD or by connecting the drive to another PC as a spare (this this fixes any file structure errors caused by the bad sector).

Afterwards, I would strongly recommend running the hard drive manufacture's diagnostic on the drive to make sure it's not likely to fail again. If the drive doesn't pass the advanced diagnostic, replace it and clone it while you can.

Spinrite is not free, but they will refund your money if it doesn't work for you. You could also run a sector scan on the drive from the recovery console, BartPE disc or another PC but a sector scan will throw out all the data in an unrecoverable sector (which may leave the OS unbootable), while Spinrite will usually recover the data.

If there's critical data on that drive I would try to copy it off there first (by connecting the drive as a spare to another PC) before running Spinrite. If the drive is in really bad mechanical shape, the intense process of the sector scan that Spinrite will run may push it over the edge.


If the drive is not recoverable, and you end up replacing it and having to re-install the OS, all you really need is an OEM Win XP Home installer CD (assuming that the laptop still has a legible Windows COA sticker on it). There's a "Windows XP 9in1" ISO on torrents that will install any version of XP (you will want to choose "Windows XP Home OEM"). Perfectly legal if you have a legit key for the Windows install on that laptop (you'll need to enter the key on the COA sticker).

Hope this helps...

Thanks for the help FP! Since there is no critical data on the drive and I have the key on the COA sticker, I went ahead and tried to reinstall XP I got from a torrent site. It all went smoothly...for a while. The partition could not be reformatted for some reason, which killed the reinstall. Can I just delete the partition and try the reinstall again?

Again, the root cause is likely a damaged sector or sectors on the drive. You need to fix that first. If you don't want to spend the money on Spinrite then run a sector scan of the drive using Scandisk from either a the Recovery Console, a BartPE boot disc, or by connecting the drive as a spare to another PC. Then run the factory diagnostic on the drive to see if it passes.

Then yes, I would delete all partitions and try to install XP again.