custom ntoskrnl.exe wont copy over in text setup!

[chris_heyward]

hey guys. MAJOR problem here! I have made myself an unattended installation with programs, reg tweaks and stripped most dll's and exe's and replaced icons, bitmaps and explorer bar. Here's my problem... I replaced the ntoskrnl.ex_ and ntkrnlmp.ex_ with a custom bootscreen made with booteditor, entered setup... all went well. Now i have decided to modify the bootscreen because the text was too big, replaced current .ex_ files and went back to setup. Now i get an error saying that the files placed on the drive are not xp system files! WHAT is going on? Windows file protection is disabled and if i replace original custom screen or xp original, it works. I even tried replacing booteditor files with new ones... still dont work! Also tried making and makecab-ing a new bootscreen using virtual machine with original files in case i corrupted some files and that still doesn't work. Can someone here please help me? I have considered everything that i can think of and now i'm lost! Thanks in advance