Missing Windows recovery disc

My Acer Aspire laptop quit working several weeks ago and I have been playing around with it for several weeks trying to get it to work again. It kept getting stuck in the windows repair screen, and despite several attempts at restoring the system or using the system recovery screen I kept getting the repair screen.

However, I turned it on today and I got a message that I had not received before. It said: File:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
status: 0xc00000e9
Info: Windows failed to load because the kernal is missing or corrupt

If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer

Of course I called Acer to ask for a windows system recovery disc and because my computer is no longer under warranty they gave me the run around.

So, does anyone know what this message means and where I can get a disc with this missing file so that I can reboot my laptop? Any help would be appreciated.

The laptops hard drive is probably failing... You might be able to purchase a Windows 7 or Windows 8 install disk. Windows 8 is being offered for $39.99 using the Windows 8 Upgrade Advisor or:
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbpage.Windows_8_Pro?WT.term=+windows +8 upgrade vista&WT.mc_id=pointitsem_Microsoft US_google_5 - Windows 8&WT.medium=cpc&WT.campaign=5 - Windows 8&WT.content=

Trying to re-install Windows will tell you if the hard drive is bad or not