Problem- any help appreciated

[t00lsh3d]

Dear all,

New to this forum so please excuse my technological ignorance.

My neighbor's computer has decided to refuse to enter windows. It gives the message "cannot load windows because the file C<Windowsroot>/system32/ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt", or something along those lines. He doesn't have the software that came with the computer.

What I'd like to know is... if I put my windows7 disc in (he has xp on it), will I be able to install windows7 as an upgrade and keep his data, solving the problem that way?

If that wont work, any bright idea's? I've read various reports involving this particular file going awol, but all have involved having the relevant version of windows on disc. Needless to say the solution has to involve keeping the data.

Any help much appreciated.

 

[KSoD]

No you cant use your disk. First off your serial is already activated. So you would have to buy another copy. Next is the fact that there is no direct upgrade from XP to Winodws 7. It requires a backup and reinstall of everything.

The only thing you can do is get a copy of XP from a 2nd hand store if your lucky and fix the PC that way. If not buy a new hard drive, a new copy of Windows 7 and install it on that hard drive. Then copy the data over from the old hard drive to the new.

 

[zeon505]

what make/model is the pc, there may be a factory restore option in the BIOS,

 

[KSoD]

PC's did not come with a factory reset option back with XP. That was not introduced until Windows Vista was released.

Plus the BIOS has nothing to do with it. That is only to get the machine to boot to Windows. The BIOS does not and can not reinstall Windows.