Boot issues, possible hard drive failure?

[krooklyn]

I am having an issue booting my pc up. It is a ibm thinkpad t42. It runs windows xp, or at least it did until recently. My first issue was the monitor. it just wouldnt start up. so I attached it to a desktop monitor, and when I turn it on the ibm logo appears then dissapears as it tries to boot up windows. it redirects me to a msg saying, "<windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe please re-install a copy of the above file." The pc was refurbished, and did not come with any discs. so I can not boot from disc. I can enter the bios setup utility and reset the defaults but it doesnt change anything. I have tried to boot up in safe mode to no avail.. it just redirects me to the same msg. I have tried to restore to the last known good configuration and tried to use the directory services restore mode. both redirecting me to the same msg. Nothing is seeming to work. Normally I can solve my pc issues with google, and following others advice on what worked for them. except this time I notice that although many ppl get the same msg as me, most either have a boot disk, or can still acces windows somehow, and get into their control panel. I am completely lost. If this doesnt get resolved soon, I might have to just put my laptop in the BBQ, sauce and all. I will literally eat this thing digestion problems or not. i am getting that frustrated. anyone that might be able to help can reply or email my hotmail. seven-one@ thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to reply.

 

[krooklyn]

tried a program called spotmau. it tried to replace the files, and now it is even worse i think. I am getting a different error msg. and now I cant even press f8 to get to the safe mode option. not that it worked before, but i found a different one to try and it wont boot up to it. it is called new multiboot dvd. both of these programs came reccomended i am still having issues..

 

[mailpup]

Try going to System Restore and going back before this problem started. Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore. Keep in mind that you can always undo the system restore if you want and/or try another restore point.

 

[krooklyn]

I said in my first post that I have tried to restore from the safe mode screen.. and it didnt work. that is the only screen I can even get to. WINDOWS WILL NOT BOOT. so there is no START, no WINDOWS. I am lucky to get past the ibm logo when turning the pc on. I can press f8 and get to the screen where it asks to log in safe mode, restore from last working position, command promt, but none of these options do anything but redirect me to the screen that told me my system32 was missing the file ntoskrnl.exe. I found a program called spotmau that allows me to use the program upon boot. and gave me the option for data rescue. it even gave me the option to restore the file and a few others in system32 (im guessing from my dllcache?) and I tried it. now it is a whole different error msg. but still NO WINDOWS.. not even in safe mode..

 

[krooklyn]

the new error msg says
disk I\0 error: status = 00000001
ndetect failed

 

[krooklyn]

so I have since used spotmau again and repeated the steps for windows recovery. it now doesnt give me ndetect failed. or the ntoskrnl.exe missing. instead it now tells me that autochk program not found. skipping autocheck. but it stays frozen on that screen, and doesnt proceed. please help

 

[Archean]

Please download Partition Wizard bootale CD, burn it (its a bootable cd image by the way); and run it to see whether your HDD has any serious issues.

Secondly, you will need windows xp setup CD, there is really no other way around it, provided there is a need for re-installation.

 

[krooklyn]

So here is where I am now. I decided to just reinstall windows. I dont have anything important on this computer. no pictures, no movies, no music. so I decided it would be easier to reinstall windows. however instead of XP I chose to go with windows 7 as I find it to be a much better OS. Everything was going good upon instalation until a blue screen with white writing popped up. it reads..

"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR

am I beyond repair?

 

[krooklyn]

it told me to restart, I did. now it cant even reckognize my hardrive. Im guessing time to say good bye?

 

[Archean]

This Stop message indicates that the requested page of kernel data from the paging file could not be read into memory. This Stop message is usually caused by a bad block (sector) in a paging file, a disk controller error, or failing RAM. In rare cases, it is caused when nonpaged pool resources run out. It is also caused by defective hardware. ..... Source MS

I guess hard disk diagnostic is the first logical step in such situation. And as you have also encountered I/O error earlier, there are good chances you are going to need a replacement HDD.

 

[krooklyn]

Im just gonna replace the HD.. its no good anymore. thanks for your time. I appreciate all your thoughts and advice

 

[Archean]

You are welcome; please let me know if you need any further assistance. Regards

 

[krooklyn]

ok well I have a new issue now, but am having trouble navigating to start a new post. So here is the new issue. I have another laptop. it is an HP pavillion. the OS is windows vista 64-bit. Lately it has given me issues trying to acces certain web pages in both IE and Firefox. The pages I have noticed the problems on are Yahoo games, and gamesville. all I want to do is play Euchre online, but after loggin in on (in internet explorer, not sure the version I have)either site it redirects me to a page that says, "we were unable to return you to yahoo.com," at the same time the tab at the top says "this tab has been recovered.. a problem with this webpage has caused IE to close and reopen this webpage." in Firefox it just closes the browser. I dont know why it wont let me access either site to play. It access' both pages with no problems on my roomates labtop, but hes always playing poker, so I can rarely get on there to play. Something has to be wrong with my PC. I have run Norton Symantic, Spybot search and destroy, uniblue registry fixer, and they all come up clean, with the exception of uniblue which always tells me there is an error by the end of every day. if i run it weekly, multiple errors come up, but they always say they are fixed when I click repair. I have also tried a few suggestions others made when I google the, "this tab has been recovered," fix. none of them work, I have reset my IE settings and still nothing. any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to help in advance if you can.