This has to be a unique problem since nothing on the web I could find has a solution although some threads apply for PART of my problem.
At the moment I'm booted on a spare drive I keep for emergencies but can't clone this to my main drive to fix the problem because this spare drive does not have all data, mail, and upgrade updates.
Had a hard shutdown because of power failure a few days ago which I suspect may have caused the problem, which problem however did not show up until now for some reason. Otherwise I don't know what else could have caused this.
The problem drive will not start XP (media center edition) without automatically going into chkdsk. chkdsk won't stop by hitting any key. I can't get to Safe Mode since the menu options do not work without error messages. I can't use the OS CD for the repair option because the result is the hal.dll file which is supposedly missing won't load from the CD.
Further, checking the actual file where it's supposed to be missing by booting on a good HDD with the problem HDD as slave, it's not missing and it's where it's supposed to be. I even tried copying the supposedly missing file to the system folder from the good HDD, but no cigar.
So in summary my HDD which I've worked on for over two weeks is in a continuous chkdsk loop, and nothing I've tried will get me to the desktop or a windows or DOS fix menu that works.
Am I condemned to reinstall the OS which will obviously lose all my work, or can I fix the partition that contains the OS and the dirty bit which causes a continuous dskchk loop?
:upset:
At the moment I'm booted on a spare drive I keep for emergencies but can't clone this to my main drive to fix the problem because this spare drive does not have all data, mail, and upgrade updates.
Had a hard shutdown because of power failure a few days ago which I suspect may have caused the problem, which problem however did not show up until now for some reason. Otherwise I don't know what else could have caused this.
The problem drive will not start XP (media center edition) without automatically going into chkdsk. chkdsk won't stop by hitting any key. I can't get to Safe Mode since the menu options do not work without error messages. I can't use the OS CD for the repair option because the result is the hal.dll file which is supposedly missing won't load from the CD.
Further, checking the actual file where it's supposed to be missing by booting on a good HDD with the problem HDD as slave, it's not missing and it's where it's supposed to be. I even tried copying the supposedly missing file to the system folder from the good HDD, but no cigar.
So in summary my HDD which I've worked on for over two weeks is in a continuous chkdsk loop, and nothing I've tried will get me to the desktop or a windows or DOS fix menu that works.
Am I condemned to reinstall the OS which will obviously lose all my work, or can I fix the partition that contains the OS and the dirty bit which causes a continuous dskchk loop?
:upset: