3 replies to this topic

[breaker]

Hey there, in my adventures in trying to help people out, I see on forums some Vista users trying to boot their systems only to be greeted with a message something along the lines of the kernel is missing or corrupt. I have searched this problem and seen a wide and wild variety of advice given for this problem, such as your disk is toast, format and reinstall. I personally have not had this problem, but thinking back to XP with the missing hal.dll, or other missing files that weren't really missing, but the boot strap in the VBR had a corrupt BPB or something, I was wondering about the possible failures under the Vista boot process that would cause this error.

So, I am scientifically curious if anyone has seen this error, and can give various logical reasons why it might occur, other than the obvious which is the kernel is indeed missing or corrupt, or their HDD or other hardware is failing. As far as actual corrupt files perhaps that is fixable by replacing files, or doing a repair install (if such a thing still exists on Vista).

thanks,

breaker

Edited by breaker, 26 April 2012 - 02:58 AM.

[Wonko the Sane]

something along the lines of the kernel is missing or corrupt.

So, I am scientifically curious if anyone has seen this error, and can give various logical reasons why it might occur, other than the obvious which is the kernel is indeed missing or corrupt, or their HDD or other hardware is failing.

Anything can be repaired. ALWAYS.
Point might be if it is convenient in terms of time and/or money/resources needed/whatever.

You produce an EXACT error, and then - maybe/hopefully - someone will produce an EXACT solution to it.
Vague problems lead to vague solutions or non-solutions like "you need to format and re-install".
http://homepage.ntlw...ard-litany.html

If you are "scientifically curious", you should also be "d@mn scientific" in asking your questions.

If you want a statistical estimation, just like 33.47% of "missing HAL" on NT/2K/XP is consequent to a botched partition scheme and/or invalid BOOT.INI settings, as well 43.89% of something "along the lines of the kernel is missing or corrupt" in Vista and 7 is due to a botched partition scheme and/or invalid bootBCD setting.
(quite obviously above percentages have been faked up just to convey the message )


Wonko

[breaker]

Yes, true as far as getting to the cause of an issue in a forum, the issue is most often vague or incomplete information. I like the standard litany, as opposed to coaxing information from people.

Now as far as tools that one may try for a non-booting system, I personally build and use PE UFD, or CD but many people only have access to the standard Vista recovery stuff on the CD (if they even have one). Of course with careful use that can often suffice.

If you can get to a command prompt and at least see the disks with diskpart, that's a start.

That's often the question with these things, what is the first thing to try based on the initial problem given.

Often it is, use tools to gather more information and report back. Then the user goes along using the tools and/or commands until they tire of it all and reinstall Windows, or success, lol.

But getting back to the missing or corrupt, it does sound worth it to at least rebuild the BCD, and maybe use a disk like the Super Grub2 Disk or something else to bypass the Windows MBR code to see if you can boot using alternate means.

For XP, you could use a boot floppy or even a boot CD with Windows native boot files, and apparently for Vista also - http://www.multiboot....uk/floppy.html

If no floppy, I guess the Grub works, any other nice boot CDs (not recovery) for Vista / 7 or a way to create one that boots a system?

thanks...

[Wonko the Sane]

If no floppy, I guess the Grub works, any other nice boot CDs (not recovery) for Vista / 7 or a way to create one that boots a system?

What do you mean by "not recovery"?
I seem to understand that the scope is recovery...
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/winre/

Another interesting point could be WHY one would actually want to repair Vista as opposed to install an actually working OS instead...


Wonko