Windows could not start because of the following file is missing or corrupt:
<windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
Please re-install a copy of the above file
To resolve you could try booting from your windows xp cd into recovery mode or into the installed version of recovery mode and run:
cd c:\windows\system32
copy “..\driver cache\i386\ntoskrnl.exe”
or
cd “c:\windows\driver cache\i386”
expand sp1.cab -F:ntoskrnl.exe c:\windows\system32
You could also try unpacking straight from the Windows xp cd too.
However when I was doing this the hard drive of the machine started making a ticking sound and stopped responding so it looked like the file corruption was a final act of a dying hard disk.