missing ntoskrnl.exe, XP Pro 64-bit

Hello,

I'm having trouble installing 64-bit XP Pro OEM on a new system. After files are copied, I am instructed to remove floppies from the floppy drive and reboot. If I leave the CD in, the first stage will be repeated forever, so I remove the CD too.

Windows then complains about a missing or corrupt ntoskrnl.exe. After I used the recovery console (expand to replace ntoskrnl.exe and fixboot and fixmbr) the problem remains. Why? Chkdsk complains "there is no disk in drive or the file system is not supported ". Tried reformatting from the recovery console and a fresh install from scratch, the problem still remains. (EDIT: To avoid dual-boot issues, the whole drive is one big NTFS partition. For now at least.)

I believe I also tried a "special" NTOSKRNL.exe intended for 64-bit systems I obtained from Microsoft to replace the stock file, but it is likely in a different location (but same partition -- I may have used a linux box to copy the file). Does ntoskrnl.exe have to start at the same sector on the HD as the old file in order to work?

(I thought the boot loader in MS-DOS contained a reference to the exact sector where command.com resided, and that relationship had to be preserved to boot the machine into DOS. I thought that tradition continued to this day. Of course I could be wrong.)

The disk is a fresh Western Dig 160 GB EIDE, manufactured 21 Oct. 2004. I left the autodetect in the BIOS set to "auto" where it treats the drive as having 16 heads (not LBA mode).

Why can't the Windows install routine format and see a satisfactory first-stage install? This is going to be necessary to "break out" of this loop where I repeat the first stage forever.

Since booting is very low-level, motherboard drivers will not have been loaded yet. Windows can see that there are no SATA drives. The disk is set for "cable select" and it is plugged in to the "master" plug on the cable. So it *_should_* work.

I pulled the HD and put it into a linux box to edit boot.ini, as discussed in MS kb 314477, but it didn't work. Should I make two XP Pro 64 installs in two partitions on the disk before playing with boot.ini?

I don't remember whether I could use a rescue CD to get XP 64 Pro to start, but I don't believe I could.

64-bit XP Pro will set up perfectly on a 120 GB drive, but I'd rather keep my 120 gigger (formatted as FAT32) for external USB enclosures.

My equipment:

ASUS M2N-SLI, Athlon Dual Core 64-bit 5400 MHz, 2 Gig Corsair RAM
NVidia 7300 video, D-link DI-524 wireless PCI, 64-bit drivers from atheros.cz
Lightscribe burner, too hurried to look up model
PC P&C Silencer 750W PSU, Antec Nine Hundred case

Any ideas? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Any ideas?

Hello,

I got the 64-bit XP installed successfully on a 120-Gig Seagate, but I'd prefer to save that drive for a FAT32 USB enclosure. The copy that is on my 120-Gig uses an ntoskrnl.exe that is 4,587,520 bytes. If I install on the 160 GB, ntoskrnl.exe is 4,566,528 bytes (version 5.2.3790.4354, it likely came from one of the MS Updates).

My machine prefers to see IDE drives as having 16 heads (not LBA or large mode). If you put in a blank IDE drive, XP 64 will make the whole drive one big NTFS partition. If you partition it with linux beforehand, XP 64 will use the first NTFS partition it finds.

No matter what, when you reboot (for the graphical part of the install) there is a disc error, and Windows will not finish the installation. You can repeat the first part of the install, but that is all you can do.

I tried expanding the file ntkrnlmp.exe from the AMD64 directory of my XP disc. I put it in WINDOWS\system32, renaming it ntoskrnl.exe. I read this is the correct kernel for Athlon dual-core 64-bit chips. Did not fix the problem. Is there another place I should have put this file after expanding?

Another time, I created an NTFS partition (about 12 gigs) that started 110 megs after the start of the drive instead of at the absolute beginning. I let XP's install disc format it and install files, still didn't work on reboot.

I thought that Windows might have a problem if the number of cylinders went over 65535. So I tried installing on a different 120-Gig drive (57,XXX cylinders), and also "errored out" (could not get to the second, graphical stage of the install) so that is not the problem.

Why can't Windows install on my 160 Gig drive? Someone said the NTFS cluster size has to be 4K or below. It is. Besides, I am trying to install on a partition that is only about 20 Gig. Would forcing my BIOS to recognize the drive as LBA help me finally get XP on the 160 Gig?

EDIT: I tried the recovery console, with map, fixboot and fixmbr. At one point, I even had linux and XP dual-booting on that 160-Gigger. Linux would boot fine. But if you chose XP you would fail, fail, fail.

Any ideas?