Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

I have had more than my share of hardware problems. While I'm waiting for the electrician, or someone like him, to put a second circuit into my office, I'm having problems that defy the physics of electromagnetism.

Two days ago, my son's computer crashed. The hard drive - about 1.5 years old, well within the MTBF for drives in our house - was making ugly, repetitive crunching sounds, as if it were doing sit ups, and Windows XP Home was refusing to boot because NTOSKRNL.EXE had gone all corrupt. The drive was so far gone that I couldn't put a new copy of the file onto it. It wouldn't even let me reformat it and reinstall Windows.

Three days ago, my father-in-law's PC also bit the dust. The hard drive is fine, but Windows 2000 was refusing to boot because NTOSKRNL.EXE had gone all corrupt. I might have been able to copy that file onto it, but I didn't have one with me, so I'm reinstalling Windows — it's easy on his because he only runs one app: a browser.

Both machines are protected by Symantec AntiVirus. Both use RCN for broadband access. Other than that, they have different operating systems, different applications, different usage patterns. All they have in common is my aura.

Could be a virus, of course, although I haven't found reports of one that eats that particular file. Apparently, this problem is sometimes caused by boot.ini crapping out. But why on both machines at the same time?

I should never have shot that guy in that graveyard that night.

The Head Lemur replies, via email since my comments are still down:

ck the harddrives. IBM 40GB made in Thailand have problems. The spindle bearings go bad resulting in the clicking of the armature hitting the surface, causing the disk to wobble, causing the armature to hit the surface, and so on. NTOSKRNL.EXE is one of the first files needed, sitting on the first track the computer accesses during boot. having the armature hitting the spot where it sits, makes this unrepairable. you can't record data on a surface no longer there to recieve it. Maxtor drives suffer simular problems.