NTOSKRNL.exe

[craigwatanabe]

So this guy's ntoskrnl.exe file is missing or corrupt and I have to reinstall a good copy. I do a google search and find that I need the recovery disk to get it and use the recovery console to reinstall it.

Okay so I go into my computer's Window/System32 folder and see that I have that same file (as do all XP and NT operating systems) and copy my file and paste it in his operating system.

I reboot his computer and viola!! Problem solved.

I'm just so freaking amazed that it worked.

[Konaguy]

Re: NTOSKRNL.exe

link

ntoskrnl.exe (and ntkrnlpa.exe on systems with Physical Address Extension support) is the kernel image for the family of Microsoft Windows NT operating systems. It provides the Microkernel and Executive layers of the Windows NT kernel space, and is responsible for various system services such as hardware virtualisation, process and memory management, etc., thus making it a fundamental part of the system.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: NTOSKRNL.exe

so basically without it the computer won't boot up. But just to make sure, I backed up everything on that hard drive.

[pzarquon]

Re: NTOSKRNL.exe

That's a pretty simple, but crucial, file. Like the AUTOEXEC.BAT of NT-based systems. Lots of entries on the Microsoft Knowledge Base. I thought it was also system specific, so I'm definitely surprised your file worked on a different machine. For it to go bad is pretty worrisome, to me. If you revived the machine, great! But I'm glad you made a backup.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: NTOSKRNL.exe

You know I wasn't sure if a transplanted file would work either so I made sure the file size, version, etc was exactly the same other than date.

And just to make sure I kept the corrupted file hidden away in another folder not related to the system32 folder, then backed up everything in the My Documents folder.

I figured since it had nothing to do with the registry this kernel file should be pretty generic and it was.

What was amazing was that nowhere in my google search could I find this method of correcting a corrupt ntoskrnl.exe file.