[Pluto56]

No, I've already backed up what I would need off of it.
Lead on, I'm all ears.

I've left it on the black screen with the windows root message, so we'll have to start there.

Thanks so much Wannabe1.

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Put the operating system cd in the drive and press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to restart.

Boot to the cd and let me know when you get to the "Welcome to Setup" screen...the two best options we have is to format and reinstall, or do a repair install.

Before we do either, let me tell you what I expect will happen. If we format, it's my feeling that it will fail. I don't know that, but I strongly expect it will. The repair install may or may not fix the hal.dll error. That can be a tough one without formatting.

Let's look at a couple things in recovery console and see if we can decide which way we want to go...or if we even want to go.

[wannabe1]

Put the operating system cd in the drive and press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to restart.

Boot to the cd and let me know when you get to the "Welcome to Setup" screen...the two best options we have is to format and reinstall, or do a repair install.

Before we do either, let me tell you what I expect will happen. If we format, it's my feeling that it will fail. I don't know that, but I strongly expect it will. The repair install may or may not fix the hal.dll error. That can be a tough one without formatting.

Let's look at a couple things in recovery console and see if we can decide which way we want to go...or if we even want to go.

[Pluto56]

Okay, I'm at the setup screen.

[wannabe1]

Press R

It should display an operating system as: 1: C:\WINDOWS. If that's what you see, press 1 then press "Enter".

When prompted for the password, press "Enter".

Type chkdsk /r and press "Enter".

Let's see if it will run all 5 stages if it's run completely outside of Windows. If it will, it may give us some information on the health of the HDD.

Let me know if you are able to do this.

[Pluto56]

Here's what I got:

Microsoft Windows XP Recovery Console.
The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality.
Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer.

C:\>

[wannabe1]

Type dir and press ''Enter".

Does a list appear? Is the Windows folder listed?

[Pluto56]

I typed dir. Here's what I got.

Directory of C:\

An error occurred during directory enumeration.

C:\>

[wannabe1]

Type bootcfg /scan and press "Enter".

Does it find any installations?

[Pluto56]

The command is not recognized. Type Help for a list of supported commands.

[Pluto56]

Should there be a space between bootcfg / scan? I tried that, and got a list.

bootcfg /add
bootcfg /rebuild
bootcfg /scan
bootcfg /list
bootcfg /disableredirect
bootcfg /redirect [port baudrate] : [use biossettings]

/scan scan all disks for windows installations and display the results.

/add add a windows installation to the boot list

/rebuild iterate through all windows insallations and allow the user to choose which to add

/list list the entries already in the boot list

/disableredirect disable redirection in the boot loader

/redirect enable redirection in the boot loader with the specified configuration

example: bootcfg /redirect com1 115200
boot /redirect use biossettings

[Pluto56]

Should there be a space between bootcfg / scan? I tried that, and got a list.

bootcfg /add
bootcfg /rebuild
bootcfg /scan
bootcfg /list
bootcfg /disableredirect
bootcfg /redirect [port baudrate] : [use biossettings]

/scan scan all disks for windows installations and display the results.

/add add a windows installation to the boot list

/rebuild iterate through all windows insallations and allow the user to choose which to add

/list list the entries already in the boot list

/disableredirect disable redirection in the boot loader

/redirect enable redirection in the boot loader with the specified configuration

example: bootcfg /redirect com1 115200
boot /redirect use biossettings

[wannabe1]

Yes...there should be a space. bootcfg /scan

[Pluto56]

Okay, I'm at the setup screen.
Which do you want me to do. Type R and try it again, then bootcfg /scan ,or enter as you said in the post that is gone now?

Yeah, the site is having problems it seems.

[wannabe1]

Yeah it is...I'd have got that edit done before you saw it if it had loaded right away....

Press R

Try the bootcfg /scan command again...let's see if it can find the installation. Sometimes the HAL.DLL error is caused by a bad boot.ini...we can rebuild that in Recovery Console.

[Pluto56]

Okay, after doing it again, here's what I got.

C:/> bootcfg /scan
Scanning all disks for Windows installations.
Please wait, since this may take a while..........
Error: Failed to successfully scan disks for Windows installations.
This Error may be caused by a corrupt file system, which would prevent Bootcfg from successfully scanning. Use chkskd to detect any disk errors.

Note: This operation must be complete successfully in order for the /add or /rebuild commands to be utilized.