Troubleshoot – Computer Restarts at Windows XP Loading Screen

One of my friend’s laptop recently got this strange problem of restarting at the windows loading screen. Now this was a unique problem since I couldn’t tweak any of the windows settings without first getting into it, and in this case, this was impossible. After a few hours of research I concluded that the trouble is caused by damaged kernel32.dll file, so I simply extracted a new copy of kernel32.dll from the windows xp cd to my friend’s laptop and it started working fine again. Here’s a step by step procedure to do the same-
1. Start the recovery ronsole from the windows boot options menu. If you don’t have the recovery console installed, then start the recovery console from windows xp cd, like this,
a. Insert the windows xp cd into the cd drive and restart the computer to boot from this cd.
b. Follow all the prompts during the text based part of the windows xp setup. Choose recover or repair option by pressing R.
c. Type the administrator’s password when prompted.
2. Now you will be at command prompt. Type cd system32 and press enter
3. Then type ren kernel32.dll kernel32.old and press enter
4. Now type map and then press enter.
5. Now note the drive letter that is assigned to assigned to the cd drive that contains the windows xp cd. It will be displayed in a format similar to this,
D:\Device\CdRom0
6. Type
Expand D:\i386\kernel32.dl_
where D is the drive letter of the cd drive that contains the windows xp cd. This may be different for your computer. See the output of step 5 to find out what is the drive letter for your computer. (Also, note the underscore character after the “l” in kernel32.dl_)
The following message will be displayed after the above command,
Kernel32.dll, 1 file(s) expanded.
7. Type exit to restart the computer.
Hopefully this will solve the problem of computer restarting at the loading screen. If not, then use comments below to post your special case.