Windows 2003 target fails to boot with error indicating missing or corrupt 'ntoskrnl.exe'

  • 7012913
  • 19-Jul-2013
  • 28-Apr-2016

Environment

NetIQ PlateSpin Migrate 12.x
NetIQ PlateSpin Migrate 11.x
NetIQ PlateSpin Migrate 9.3
Windows 2003 source workload
At-least one partition on target physical machine gets preserved

Situation

Moving or copying a Windows OS machine with more than three primary partitions to a
physical machine where a Windows OS has been installed with minimum 3 primary partitions. At least
one primary partition is preserved in the target machine.

The following error occurs when Windows Server 2003 machine is converted to Physical
machine:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe. Please re-intall a copy of the above file".



Resolution

1. Boot the target machine with take control ISO (bootofxx2p.iso).
2. Press 'Alt + F7' to get to the console.
3. Type 'echo -e "x\nf\nw\n" | fdisk /dev/sda' and press Enter.
4. Type 'reboot' and press Enter.
 
When the target machine reboots, it will load the native Windows OS fine.

Cause

Partition order gets changed in the partition table of target machine due to which Windows boot config could not point correctly to the system drive.