Ok, i think this question belongs here, so here it goes. a little background info on the problem: i have 2 computers in my room, right next to each other. i turned them both off at about 3 am and went to bed, they were both working fine. today i woke up at about 2 pm and turned them on, both had the error in the title. the computer im on at the moment is a compaq, while the other is a northgate. the compaq is about 4 years old while the northgate is around 7. i ran a system recovery on my compaq, and now everything is up and running, surprisingly better than before. the only problem is on that on the northgate, when it boots up, there is no system recovery option. i know that if you put in the windows xp cd that things should work, only problem is that the compaq was bought off a friend, and neither of us have the cd, and the northgate is 7 years old, and i have obviously lost the cd. i have put the file onto a flash drive, but when i put it in and turn on my pc, no button will do anything to do, and i know that hitting escape is supposed to load it. i have also tried contacting northgate, but of course, they are out of business. if you have any way that could possibly help me i would be very grateful.
thank you
sincerly,
ipoder2

get hal.dll here...

we are going to Copy the file manually to C:\Windows\System32...

do this on a working system
you must first make a bootable floppy... follow the below steps to do this....

1. Place floppy diskette in the computer.
2. Open My Computer, right click the A: drive and click Format.
3. In the Format window, check Create an MS-DOS startup disk.
4. Click Start
it will take a minute or so...once its done...copy the hal.dll you downloaded to the floppy...

then insert the floppy in the non booting computer...
set the bios to boot from the floppy first....boot from the floppy...
Once your at the A:\>

type in copy A:\hal.dll C:\Windows\System32 press enter...
if it ask if you want to overwrite file...say yes
type in exit... press enter...
eject the floppy and reboot

This post has been edited by happyrock: Jul 5 2009, 07:40 AM

wow thanks so much! i'm going to try that tomorrow, since 1) i dont have a floppy and 2)my working computer doesnt have a floppy drive..
but ill use my friends tomorrow. i hope this works

edit: would it be possible to do this from a flash drive instead of a floppy?

another edit:how would i make it boot the flash drive first?

This post has been edited by ipoder2: Jul 5 2009, 08:02 PM

just use the floppy method...

will do
and sorry i meant how do i make it boot the floppy first?

ok, i actually got the disk and when i go in and try to fix the file, it says there is an error caused by a corrupt file everytime i try to do bootcfg /rebuild. then when i use chkdsk nothing happens.

go here..download the following file: rc.iso....then run chkdsk /r
from the rc.iso cd...be sure the bios is set to boot from the cd drive first...

if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files go here and get burncdcc ..a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the ISO file you want to burn on cd/dvd ....in this case its rc.iso
3. Select the ISO file
4. click on Start

make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....

boot from the rc.iso cd....
type in chkdsk /r press enter
note the single space before the /

While chkdsk is running, you will see a light blue window with a dark blue band at the top and bottom. Chkdsk will display the specific stage it is checking as well as the percentage of completion of the stage. You cannot do anything else on your computer while chkdsk is running. When chkdsk is finished, it will automatically reboot your computer.
NOTE this can take a long time to complete..it may even appear to hang or get stuck at a certain % for a couple of hours...then complete
it may even back up and go over the same area...this is normal...let it run...there are 5 stages
DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER WHILE RUNNING CHKDSK or you can have severe problems...
nojoy...
boot from the cd again...
then type fixmbr press enter...reboot
no joy ....boot from the cd again...
type in fixboot press enter...reboot
nojoy...boot from the cd again...

Type in bootcfg /scan and press Enter

if it says total identified window installs: 1

Type in bootcfg /rebuild and press Enter...

It will identify your XP installation...type Y once you see this prompt.

You will be prompted to enter the load identifier...type in Microsoft XP Home Edition or Microsoft XP Professional depending on whichever version you have...press enter

You will be prompted to enter the load options...type in /fastdetect and press Enter

Type in exit and press Enter

remove the cd

Reboot

This post has been edited by happyrock: Jul 6 2009, 05:50 PM

im doing the chkdsk /r atm it got to 99 and started over. ill let you know how things go when it finishes

ok, i typed in everything up to bootcfg /scan and i have had no luck with any of them. after i enter bootcfg /scan and it did its thing, it said this
error:failed to successfully scan disks for windows installtions. this error may be caused by a corrupt file system, which would prevent bootcfg from suddessfully scanning.use chkdsk to detect and disk errors
but chkdsk says everythings working fine

While chkdsk is running, you will see a light blue window with a dark blue band at the top and bottom. Chkdsk will display the specific stage it is checking as well as the percentage of completion of the stage. You cannot do anything else on your computer while chkdsk is running. When chkdsk is finished, it will automatically reboot your computer.

idk how to quote, so you wrote that. when the chkdsk finishes it doesnt automatically reboot, and there is no blue window and blue band

if you actually get chkdsk /r to run ...it will take several hours to complete...so you have not run chkdsk yet...there are 5 stages...
try again

ok, i shut down my computer, booted it back up, booted from the disk, hit r, hit 1, entered my password, entered chkdsk /r, and its just a black screen with white writing saying CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery, it says that 21 times, and it gets up to 100% and adds another one on and starts over. is it supposed to happen like that?

it now says CHKDSK has finished checking the volume. then it says the total disk space, then how much is available. then it says c:\WINDOWS> and then i can enter more stuff

are you using the rc.iso cd that I gave you a link to...
which screen do you see...the black or the blue when you run chkdsk /r

This post has been edited by happyrock: Jul 6 2009, 07:08 PM

yes