ntoskrnl.exe missing....major problems

Hello!

First of all the problem computer is an HP with Windows XP. When you start the computer it immediately starts beeping and does NOT stop. The HP screen appears for a few seconds, then a black screen appears with the following message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt.
<windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
Please reinstall a copy of the above file.

I have already tried starting in safe mode and in recovery mode...no go...the keyboard and mouse does NOT work. I have also tried recovery cd's and boot disks...they did not work. The cd appears to be working, but nothing appears. I get an I/O error with the disks. I did get a DOS boot disk to read for all the good it did me with the keyboard not working.

It is a partitioned HD and we do not have the XP cd, which I don't think matters at this point since the keyboard and mouse does not work. Would putting an XP cd in the cd drive start the process and maybe detect the keyboard and mouse so they would start working again?

About once every 30 or so starts, when the black screen appears, a countdown ticker shows up at the bottom of the screen. After the countdown is complete, the XP choose user page shows up, of course you can't choose because of no keyboard and no mouse.

The only recent problem has been a printer that went haywire, could that have somehow caused the problem?

Any suggestions other than taking it to a repair shop?

Thank you!
Suzanne