ntoskrnl.exe is lost or hosed

> Hi
>
> My MS Word 2000 crashed yesterday and just after I did my
> duty and sent the report via the web my system crashed
> completly. (I have a HP laptop - Athlon 4 -XP Home -
> purchased in Nov 2001)
>
> I turned off my machine and then tried to reboot. After
> much time a message came up saying that my ntoskrnl.exe
> was missing or corrupted and that I needed to reload it.
>
> Problem is that the only way to reload it seems to make
> me re-format my whole disk using the HP provided Restore
> disk. Does anyone know af a way I can boot into my
> machine and simply copy the bad files over???
>
> The ntoskrnl.exe on a seperate system is about 1.8 MB so
> that will add to the fun.
>
> Thanks
>
> Kevin Bolster