The file serenum.sys is corrupted

Attempting to install Windows XP Home Edition on a Pentium4 PC.

“The file serenum.sys is corrupted.”

In efforts to locate the source, I swapped out hard drives, XP install CDs, CD-ROM drives, IDE cables…

I took out one of the sticks of RAM (there were two).

I had really thought the problem would be the CD-ROM drive. A quick Google search had indicated that’s a likely cause.

Strangely enough, the problem was a faulty RAM chip – the chip I hadn’t taken out.

This problem can also result in the message “The file [filename] was not copied correctly.”

This post should make a good reference. When you have hardware problems, test/replace the RAM! This includes freezes, crashes, file corruption, etc.

3 Responses to “The file serenum.sys is corrupted”

  1. Anonymous says:

    I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WITH IT COMING UP WITH A ERROR EVERY TIME I BOOT UP I HAVE TEST AND REPLACE ALL PARTS AND IT STILL DOSIT

  2. Leonardo says:

    Anonymous .. .. the problem could be related to (maybe) different things.

    you can try one of these. I’ve had the (un)luck to do them and they have worked on different computers when this problem occurred.

    – Sometimes if you are lucky you can just restore the system files and go on.

    – Try to reinstall the OS if you have time :)

    – There are several problems related to serenum.sys in Windows XP without sp2 installed.
    If you don’t have sp2 installed try to solve by installing it.

    – try to disable from the bios, if possible, the pcmcia(notebooks) and COM ports. If the system return to normal status the problem could be a defective mobo/ports

    – try to change the ram if the errors are related to different things and not only for the serenum.sys. (this problem could happen in any case of error)

    I’ve had this problem 5/6 times with different motherboards and sometimes it’s quite frustrating to detect the exact problem.

    Regards

  3. DTheComputerUser657289 says:

    I got this same error recently on an old Gateway running XP, 3 GB RAM, single core 3 GHz processor. Tried running Ubuntu, couldn’t load; tried running XP disks to repair, couldn’t load; I got this error when I ran the XP disk. Turns out, the RAM closest to the hard drive was hot. Not burning or scalding hot, but hot. Took it out, went down to 2 GB of RAM, but the machine fired up all of a sudden.

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