[jaysbanshee]

Trying to fix my brothers computer because of the missing or corrupt hal.dll error. I can boot to an XP install cd, but as soon as I choose to install windows or to do a repair, it says that it cannot find the hard drive. I installed a second hard drive with the XP OS and connected the bad drive. In my computer, it shows both hard drives and I can access most of the files on the bad drive. I can get into all of the user profiles, except my brothers. I copied the hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe from the good drive to the bad drive and now I get windows/system32/config/system is missing or corrupt. I looked at that file on the bad drive and it shows 0 bytes. Any ideas to fix the bad drive?

Thanks
Jay

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Welcome to Geeks To Go!

The hard drive may be failing or failed, but to confirm this you need to test it with the drive maker's own diagnostic tool available free from their website.

[phillipcorcoran]

Welcome to Geeks To Go!

The hard drive may be failing or failed, but to confirm this you need to test it with the drive maker's own diagnostic tool available free from their website.

[jaysbanshee]

Ran a Long pass using seagates seatools for windows, and it said that the drive passed.

[The Skeptic]

I am not sure I understood the sequence of events but I understand from your first post that you are willing to reinstall or repair windows.

Your best option, in my opinion, is to backup the data and then format the affected hard disk while still connected to the working computer. Now move the formatted disk back to the non-working computer and run new windows install.