what is this file ? Help !

[bomar357]

My year old computer running WinXP has frozen many times
and given me the message in a DOS window "file <Windows
root>system32\ntoskrnl.exe. is missing or corrupt. repair
or reinstall. Well I have tried to reinstall XP,formatted
the hard drive, and even installed a new hard drive. In
that order. I am getting that message again, 1 week after
the new drive. I have gotten it running again thru
different means at different times. once just restarting,
another time I had to turn off computer, once the only
thing that worked was install to previous working config.
I am afraid to just put in my Win XP disk and let it find
this file as that really made a mess the last time and led
to the install of the new drive. 3 different "tech"
people here have tried to help, evidently with no success.

 

[Austin Wise]

ntoskrnl.exe is a core part of the Windows operating system. Perhaps you
have a virus in some file you backup before reinstalling and it gets to your
computer that way.

Another possible, yet unlikely, cause is that your hard drive has some
problems.

 

[Tom Swift]

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 314477
"Error Message: Windows Could Not Start Because of a Computer Disk Hardware
Configuration Problem"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314477

Tom Swift