Hello, I am new here and newbie about HDD and OS stuff thats why I am desperately searching for help everywhere and found this forum!Three days ago my OS win XP crashed, I restarted and it showed me message <windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe is missing please reinstall application above (or something like that).I tried to repair through Restore Console, reinstall windows XP, I even tried to format from other partition, I tried to get rid with windows Vista installation disk by formatting, form moment I thought it worked, but then I installed windows Vista on that partition and guess what?Within windows Vista (wich turns out isnt work) there was directory with name Windows.old. I almost fell from my chair.HOW can it be possible?I brutaly terrorized HDD with formatting and installations for days and still I cant get rid of old windows XP.Of course I can give detailed description about everything that I was doing!I hope for some reply at least some laugh...

Hi

there are many conspiracy theories out there. You seem to have 2 computers one you are chatting to us on and another... not working. I would install the XP again (i dont use vista two slow for me... vista is MS Windows ME Windows 7 is the new XP) and go throught the setup and press F8 to accept EULA when its see's the current partions delete them all... follow the onscreen prompts... the dont do a quick ntfs format do the normal ntsf format.... it may take a while 20 min ... go make some coffee.... Then continue with installation of XP.... This should fix the problems.

Let us know
Darren

Formatting is not the same as wiping the drive... all it does is reset the drive's MBR partition table. Well, that is the quick format. A full? format does that plus scan the disk for errors. No actual file deletion is involved, just the losing of them. One of Setup's jobs is to find old installations, and it does not need the partition table for that. Looks like it found yours, and Setup will not overwrite it if it does find one, unless you force it to by deleting and creating a new installation partition.

If you still face the problem inspite of Formatting all partitions use the following tool, it'll totally wipe clean your HDD....

Darik's Boot And Nuke

Hello,
Thanks a lot for replies!
i dont have two replies I have 2 HDD.One of them works fine and I am using Vista on it right now.Second Hard Disk "looks" formatted and empty and I am keeping music there.
Thanks for explaining the difference between format and wipe.I thought formatting means wiping EVERYTHING thats on partition.
I'll try to wipe Hard Disk with that program, but I just dont want to install XP or any other OS un that "broken" HDD.Maybe some other month.But a lot thanks for replying.Now I will know where to go if my computer will make conspiracy against me