[DJinAZ]

I am having problems with my computer and the message <windows root>\system32\hal.dll file missing or corrupt. I have tried several of the posts on this site and none of them have worked. I have an E-machines T2692 and WinXP home edition came installed in it. I don't want to use the disks that came with the computer since that will clean everything off my hard drive. There are files and pictures on the hard drive that I don't want to lose. I have learned my lesson that data must be backed up frequently.

I do not have a WinXP CD, but I have downloaded the 6 disk set from Windows and tried to run the repair console from that. I get to the repair option and select it. It does not give ask about any installation location. It takes me to c:\> and I can type in basic commands. I tried following the help posted at http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_repair_a_missing_or_cor.htm and was not successful. When I entered bootcfg /list it came back with No boot entries available to display. I proceeded to the next step and entered bootcfg /rebuild. The error that came back was Failed to successfully scan disks for windows installations. may be corrupt file system which would prevent bootcfg from successfully scanning. Use chkdsk to detect any disk errors. I ran Chkdsk and it stopped at 30% complete and had an error message. That message was The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems. I thought I could copy boot.ini from A: to C: so I tried Dir C:. That message was An error occurred during directory enumeration. I can see the bad drive when I slave it to another computer. When I try to look at it using explorer it comes up with the disk is not formatted, would I like to?

I am at a loss as to what to do and would appreciate any help you can offer.

Thanks

 

[Guest]

how many hard drives and/or partitions do you have ?

also i would read these articles : 1 2

 

[DJinAZ]

I have the original Maxtor 80GB that came with the system. After the hal.dll error, I bought a new Maxtor 100GB and used the recovery disks on that to get the system up and running. I would like to merge the data from the bad drive to the new working one. I have not added any partitions to either drive.

I will read over the links, they look like something different than what I have tried so far.

 

[Guest]

If there is a recovery console or disk try to do a recovery. repair install would also solve the problem. if replacing or fixing in recovery console with bootcfg /rebuild didnt work one of the above would definetely will fix it.

 

[Khyshen]

you can download that .dll file of the internet, ive seen many websites that have windows stuff. search on google.

 

[Guest]

7/7 times i experienced this problem it had nothing to do with the dll file. it is the bootcfg corruption most of the time they say. it was %100 to me.

 

[DJinAZ]

I kept both drives in the system while doing the 6 floppy disk method to get to recovery console. I was able to look at the bad hard drive. I believe I can not look at all files since I did not see bootcfg listed when I did DIR at the E: prompt (location of inoperable hard drive). Is there a way to view hidden files on that drive? The only files listed were

00000001.tmp
maxix.ini
autorun.inf
start.exe

There were some other files but none had any numbers shown in the file size area. I did do bootcfg /rebuild and something happened. I tried to start up using the bad drive and still had the same issue. I did make sure the jumper was correct so that is not the problem. How do you do a repair install when you don't have an XP disk, or is that what we are trying to do?

Thanks

 

[Stu_computer]

00000001.tmp
maxix.ini
autorun.inf
start.exe

This is something you would find on a CD not a hard drive.

I suggest you try a quickboot floppy first. http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
Down the page you will see...
XP Quick Boot Diskette Files | Read.1st

Read Read.1st so you know how to make/use the bootdisk. If you get into windows with it then copy your personal data to the other drive while you can, it's likely failing if chkdsk ran into problems while repairing it.

If it doesn't work then go back to the other arrangement with it as a slave.
Start /Run/ type diskmgmt.msc
When Disk Management comes up, click Action-Rescan Disks, then check if drive is accessible. (Don't use any other options as it may worsen the situation.)

 

[DJinAZ]

Thanks. I will create the bootdisk and give it a try. The HD is probably failing. I hear a click, like turning on and off, when I run any scanning programs against the drive. I do not hear that when I am using the new one.

 

[DJinAZ]

I created a boot disk from the site you directed me to. I downloaded the file, unzipped it, moved the files out of the folder and saved it all. When I started up the system it acted like it did not know what to do and went to the hard drive. I can start up from the 6 disk so I did not change the bios. Since the single disk did not work I did the second thing on the list, Start /Run/ type diskmgmt.msc and I did a printscreen of what it came back with. I could not paste it into this window and do not know how to e-mail that to you. What’s next?

 

[Stu_computer]

There are files and pictures on the hard drive that I don't want to lose.

The drive is likely damaged beyond simple recovery methods so I suggest you consider your options before continuing...

1. Pay a data recovery service to retrieve files. It's expensive, some offer 'free appraisal', might not be able to recover the specific data you want.

2. Buy software that can recover data...
This one has a free NTFS reader and demos DOS NTFS boot disk to access NTFS partitions

3. This is a freeware package that might be able to fix the access problem, it will also identify if there are cylinder errors. http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html

I've had hdd's that were okay in the BIOS IDE, yet no software could see it, much less access it, and when connected as an external USB drive it worked, the data could be recovered (recovery depends on the damage though).