Installing XP from DOS. Help me!

[01908604324]

Hi there my computer was working fine a week ago with windows xp. Then it booted up one morning and said that a file called <windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe was missing and to reinstall the file.
I put a windows 98 startup disk in and the windows xp cd and i get 3 options. I select start command prompt with cd enabled but windows xp cannot be run from DOS mode.
I get the impression from other people on the net that when you start your PC with just the windows xp cd that you get a windows xp setup screen and youv got all kinds of options like recovery and stuff but I dont. It just goes straight to the error message (when I haven't got a 98 startup disk in), so clearly I need to fix the error from DOS.

Please help anyone!  :-

[street1 (RIP)]

Have you installed Linux before this?

You can download the file to make the XP 6 disk boot set
below link.There is also a single bootdisk for XP setup at
the bottom of the page.I haven't tried that one.LOL

http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml

A thought:Is your Bios set to boot from CD-Rom?

[01908604324]

it's moi again and no it wasn't a linux installation prior to the current one. I'l try going into the bios to boot from cd if I can find it and let you know. Afterall that would be a heck of a lot easier than poncing around with 20 year old command prompts.

Thanks for the post anyway.

[Neil]

Make sure the CD is given higher boot priority than the harddrive, put the cd in and restart.