big PC problem?

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Toml

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I went to boot up my PC toady and it stopped midway, the screen went blue with a message telling me KRNL386.exe could not be found.

I'm not an expert but i reckon this means my PC is b*gg*r*d. Anyone know if its fixable and will i have lost everything on my hard drive?

I can get it to run in DOS and it does list everything on the C: drive, but when i try and run anything from DOS it pops up a message saying something like 'this computer contains no relevant information'

Help, please!
 
Sounds nasty. If it can't find something you've either got a corrupted disc or a virus which has wiped out part of the operating system. If it boots up in DOS then the fundamentals are all there.

You could try re-installing the operating system from scratch. This will re-load the files you should have onto disc but won't wipe out anything that is already there (personal stuff).

Before that try and run a disc repair routine to see if that's what the problem is.
 
No expert but had a problem similar before. It was due to installing free-ware. I'd do the same, try to repair with rescue disk? Then look at reinstalling Operating System if no joy.
 
You need to be careful here, it is inadvisable to re-install an operating system without formatting the disk. Win XP has a 'repair' function, which will replace the corrupted/missing file(s), but older versions do not. Anyway if you do reinstall win me for example it will wipe the disk not just reinstall the operating system.

If you can boot in dos, try and back up any critical personal files to your A: drive.

Then you could try and download a copy of the missing file from the net. Just type the name (krnl.. whatever) into google. This will not always work but its worth a try.
 
Toml said:
I went to boot up my PC toady and it stopped midway, the screen went blue with a message telling me KRNL386.exe could not be found.

I'm not an expert but i reckon this means my PC is b*gg*r*d. Anyone know if its fixable and will i have lost everything on my hard drive?

I can get it to run in DOS and it does list everything on the C: drive, but when i try and run anything from DOS it pops up a message saying something like 'this computer contains no relevant information'

Help, please!
Click to expand...

At the C:\ prompt type dir/p it should tell you what is on your drive one screen at a time. If it says everything that should be there is then I would strongly suspect a virus of some sort. Do you have a boot floppy? If so then boot with that and type c: then c:\dir/p and see what that says.
You may end up having to do a re-install to repair any corruption. After that the first thing you should do is scan for any virus and eliminate any if found.

HTH
 
BR said:
You need to be careful here, it is inadvisable to re-install an operating system without formatting the disk. Win XP has a 'repair' function, which will replace the corrupted/missing file(s), but older versions do not. Anyway if you do reinstall win me for example it will wipe the disk not just reinstall the operating system.

If you can boot in dos, try and back up any critical personal files to your A: drive.

Then you could try and download a copy of the missing file from the net. Just type the name (krnl.. whatever) into google. This will not always work but its worth a try.
Click to expand...

The only time a re-install should wipe the disk is if you are using a complete restore CD that came with the computer. Other than that almost all Win os's will do a reinstall if you have an original windows disc i.e. just the operating system.
NT, 2000 and XP do as you say have a repair facility, the others just do a complete re-install of the os, all personal data should remain provided you haven't reformatted. You may however have to reload some programs.
 
i would be very wary of doing as you say, it is certainly not recommended (by Microsoft or any other manufacture) to reinstall one copy of windows over another. The risk of corrupting files is high

Maybe I’m picking this up wrong, but is this what your talking about:
Lets say I have win 98 on my machine, but there are problems with the os, so I get my Microsoft win 98 cd and boot from it, select the option 'install windows 98' and proceed as prompted.

The above WILL erase ALL information from the machine incl. all drivers etc. and reinstall win98 with default settings.
 
Sorry BR, can't agree. I have "reinstalled " win98se a number of times on different pc's and only found that it replaced damaged/corrupted windows files and certainly left all the individual user files intact. It doesn't format the hard drive unless you specifically ask it to do so..
 
have to agree with BR I did exactly what he stated with Win 98 and it did exactly as he predicted
 
i am sorry but i have to agree with xp when he says I have "reinstalled " win98se a number of times on different pc's and only found that it replaced damaged/corrupted windows files and certainly left all the individual user files intact. It doesn't format the hard drive unless you specifically ask it to do so..

If you put your win 98 cd in from boot up, it will read it as an "ordainairy" cd and run what it can, i,e add extra progs etc.

If your o.s is totally corrupted / or you boot from DOS then it will reinstall your o/s but as XP said you have to have told it to do that.

for what its worth when i used to have win 98, i found that at least once a year i would have to format my hard drive and reinstall everything as no matter what i tried it became too cluttered with "junk"

I still have win 98 on the other pc's but i do not use them that often, this one has win xp pro, and i can leave it on for days without switching it off, which i could never do with win 98
 
XP said:
Sorry BR, can't agree. I have "reinstalled " win98se a number of times on different pc's and only found that it replaced damaged/corrupted windows files and certainly left all the individual user files intact. It doesn't format the hard drive unless you specifically ask it to do so..
Click to expand...

Me to, many dozens, if not hundreds, of times and I've never had the experience where doing so wipes any data not directly associated with the OS. It WILL replace any updated system files with earlier versions hence the need to reinstall any 'service packs' (bug fixes). It will also overwrite the registry files hence the need to reinstall some software (not all software is dependant on registry entries). It will overwrite the WAB file and saved e-mail messages folders. But all personal user data like pictures, documents, photos etc should remain untouched. Most drivers will also still be on the system but you may need to tell the OS where they are located.
If you have backed up the registry and other important data then it is very simple, though often time consuming, to restore your machine to its original 'pre crash' state. With 2000 and XP you can even install a 'clean' copy of the OS and leave the original untouched. Its then simply a case of moving the relevant files to the new copy, after scanning them first of course, then deleting the old OS.
 
heres where i have to back down and admit that i must be doing somthing wrong. But at 58 i've done well to get this far! Interesting to know that what you say can be done.
 
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