I can no longer boot to my FAT32 WinXP partition, although my folders
seem intact and accessible from recovery console. I recently upgraded
hard drives and cloned my partition, which seemed to work fine, until I
started getting the "missing or corrupt" hal.dll message whenever I try
to boot.

If I boot to the WinXP CD I am not offered the repair option to do a
repair installation. Out of desperation I tried 'fixboot /rebuild' and
later 'fixmbr' commands from the repair console which did not help.
Still the hal.dll message. Below are the results of partinfo.exe on
the problem hard drive:

================================================
PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 02/20/2005 14:07

====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | c | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 312576642 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+

===============================================================================
EMBR Found (HD0)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revsion: 2 Min SPT: 9 Sectors: 1 SSize: 512
Last Cyl: 1023 Last Hd: 254 SPT: 63
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MPT Found: Revision: 5, Number of Entries: 1 Flag: 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0: LOCAL DISK-0 Flag: 4000 Start: 63 End: 312576704 FS: C
ID: 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MBFT Found: Revision: 2, Number of Entries: 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MDT Found: Revision: 2, Number of Entries: 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0: Bootit EMBRL Flag: 20 Start: 0 NumSecs: 7 Alloc: 50
ID: 0
===============================================================================
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0xC LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 312576642 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 58 90 (EB 58 90)
OEM Name: MSWIN4.1 (MSWIN4.1)
Bytes Per Sec: 512 (512)
Sec Per Clust: 64 (64)
Res Sectors: 32 (32)
Num FATs: 2 (2)
Root Dir Ents: 0 (0)
Sectors: 0 (0)
Media: 0xF8 (0xF8)
Secs Per FAT: 0 (0)
Sec Per Track: 63 (63)
Heads: 255 (255)
Hidden Secs: 63 (63)
Huge Sectors: 312576642 (312576642)
Huge Secs Per FAT: 38149 (38149)
Flags: 0x0 (0x0)
Version: 0 (0)
Root Dir Clust: 14043 (14043)
FS Info Sec: 1 (1)
FS Bkup Sec: 6 (6)
Reserved: 0 0 0 0 0 0
Drive Num: 0x80 (0x80)
Res: 0x0 (0x0)
Boot Sig: 0x29 (0x29)
Vol ID: 0x1A330EDF (0x1A330EDF)
Volume Label: LOCAL DISK (LOCAL DISK)
FS Type: FAT32 (FAT32 )
Boot Flag: 0xAA55 (0xAA55)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a follow up, my boot.ini reads as follows:

[boot loader]
timeout=20
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=""

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...

> I can no longer boot to my FAT32 WinXP partition, although
> my folders seem intact and accessible from recovery console.
> I recently upgraded hard drives and cloned my partition,

That is likely the problem, you stuffed up the cloning.

> which seemed to work fine, until I started getting the
> "missing or corrupt" hal.dll message whenever I try to boot.

Thats very common when you dont do the cloning properly
and is only seen when you remove the original drive. It appears
to boot off the clone fine with the original present and then
fails to boot once you either remove the original or wipe the
files from it that are used when booting the clone, from the original.

Its a bit late now if you have wiped the original drive, but if
you've just removed it, try doing the clone again. This time
do the clone in a way that you can guarantee wont have
the system reboot after the clone has been done. When
the clone has been done, physically disconnect the original
drive and boot the clone. XP will claim to have seen new
hardware and ask if it can reboot. Allow that, and let it reboot.

Once you have booted the clone that way, you can
connect the original again and the clone will still boot
fine, and you can boot from the original too if you want
to by selecting the drive to boot from in the bios.

If you dont do the first boot off the clone that way, with the
original still visible to XP, it gets royally confused and basically
keeps getting some files used in the boot process of the original
even when booting off the clone. Which then fails if you either
remove the original later, or wipe the files on the original.

> If I boot to the WinXP CD I am not offered
> the repair option to do a repair installation.

It isnt offered UNTIL you start installing XP
on that drive. THEN it will offer to repair the
installation instead of doing a fresh clean installation.

> Out of desperation I tried 'fixboot /rebuild' and
> later 'fixmbr' commands from the repair console
> which did not help. Still the hal.dll message.

Usually because the boot is still trying to get some files off
the original drive and they are no longer there for some reason.
Neither fixboot or fixmbr will fix that particular problem.

> Below are the results of partinfo.exe on the problem hard drive:

That stuff isnt likely relevant, the partitions are likely fine, the problem
is what files are used in the XP boot process, not the partitions.

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...

> As a follow up, my boot.ini reads as follows:

> [boot loader]
> timeout=20
> default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
> [operating systems]
> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=""

Thats the result of the fixboot /rebuild

The last line would normally be something like
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn