In Drupal, when you get a 404 page all your blocks are hidden which rather sucks as it blows your theme. This function added to your theme's template.php file saves the day.
/**
* Override or insert variables into the page templates.
*
* @param $vars
* An array of variables to pass to the theme template.
* @param $hook
* The name of the template being rendered ("page" in this case.)
*/
function phptemplate_preprocess_page(&$vars, $hook) {
$vars['path'] = base_path() . path_to_theme() .'/';
