Boot up problem

markymark2901

My wife has a Samsung NC10 netbook. last sunday it refused to boot up. When swiched on it stops at screen saying ...

"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"

What can I do ? Please help ....

Figment

1st step. Switch netbook on, immediately press F8. Wait for a menu to appear then select Last Known Good Configuration that worked.

markymark2901

Okay .... done that ... selected windows XP home edition (only choice) ... screen goes blank .... some text quickly flashed up (but too quick to read) ... the Samsung brand screen flashes up for about 1/2 a second .... then screen goes back to being blank/black ...

Figment

markymark2901 wrote: »

Okay .... done that ... selected windows XP home edition (only choice) ... screen goes blank .... some text quickly flashed up (but too quick to read) ... the Samsung brand screen flashes up for about 1/2 a second .... then screen goes back to being blank/black ...

Was the hard disk LED flickering at this point? Did you leave it a while?

markymark2901

Hard disc LED appears to be permanently on rather than flickering. Left it for about 2 minutes. Just done it again to leave it a bit longer and after about 2/3 minutes it gone back to the display in the OP ...

TakeThis

Do you have an external CD drive? You could run a Repair Install with an appropriate disc.
Otherwise you could possibly retrieve the file from the Recovery Partition or just run a Factory Restore.

markymark2901

TakeThis wrote: »

Do you have an external CD drive? You could run a Repair Install with an appropriate disc.
Otherwise you could possibly retrieve the file from the Recovery Partition or just run a Factory Restore.

I don't have an external hard drive and there no discs with the net book when it was purchased.

How would I retrieve the file from the partition or do a factory reset in view of the difficulties in booting up ?

debitcardmayhem

markymark2901 wrote: »

I don't have an external hard drive and there no discs with the net book when it was purchased.

How would I retrieve the file from the partition or do a factory reset in view of the difficulties in booting up ?

You could try running Hirens Boot CD from a USB stick , sounds silly saying run a boot cd from USB but it will work

edit: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd-on-usb-disk

TakeThis

Factory Reset; F4 on StartUp, but you'll lose all data.
There are lots of ways of fixing this, but I'm too tired to write a guide.

You can also put a Samsung XP disc on a USB drive.

markymark2901

Nothing on the computer importance so tried F4 on boot up. Selected Samsung recovery.... files started to load ... Brand name came on the screen ... Finished with what looked like a blank desk top .... No icons at all and no task bar .... So close !!!!!

markymark2901

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

You could try running Hirens Boot CD from a USB stick , sounds silly saying run a boot cd from USB but it will work

edit: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd-on-usb-disk

I have read through the link but it says you need a boot cd to set up the boot-USB. I didn't get a boot CD with the netbook though.