Windows XP - NTOSKRNL.exe is missingor corrupt after using EasyBCD

G

greenfid

Member
Hi
I have a problem with a Windows XP machine after using EasyBCD Edit2.2. When I ran EasyBCD on this machine there seemed to be too many entries in the Windows Boot Loader and some were described as Windows 7 when Windows 7 was not installed. Rather than delete all and start again I added an entry for Windows XP with the drive automatically determined and rebooted. I got the error message that <windows root>\system32\NTOSKRNL.exe is missing or corrupt.
I did a little background reading that suggests this can be caused by a messed up boot.ini file. So I have:
1. Run Chkdsk C: /R
2. Run Hirens Bootdisk in mini XP mode and checked the boot .ini file which looks OK. I can paste a copy if needed.
3. Checked that the ntoskrnl.exe is in place in C:\ windows\system32
4. Deleted boot.ini and then rebuilt it with bootcfg /rebuild, fixboot and fixmbr
5. Ran an inplace upgarde of windows xp which runs fine through the first stages but when it tries to reboot into the hard drive fails with the same error message.
Any suggestions gratefully received. I know I can copy all the files off and do a full reinstall but would rather avoid this and I don't like to be beaten!
Is it possible that I installed the windows 7 boot loader rather than the XP one? If so how do I delete it and get back to just the XP system.
 
Yes you installed the Win7 bootloader. If you read, you will see that EasyBCD is only to manipulate the BCD, which only works with Vista, Win7 and Win8. XP is not on that list. While you can add and XP entry, you must have one of the corresponding OS's installed to get anywhere. Since you are only using XP, you dont need EasyBCD. You will need the XP CD to fix this.
 
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