Boot fail -- missing file

[Charlie Bress]

I am helping a neighbor. She has a new Dell and XP pro. She had been on
dial-up and is trying to get onto DSL. As an AOL user she wants to stay with
AOL. When we tried to set it up before, we could not find the modem. She has
an alarm system and had to get a filter for the alarm. Today the service guy
came with the filter and tried to set her up on DSL. His approach was to set
her up with the DSL ISP and not AOL. This is all just background.



I don't have clue what the alarm guy did, but now the system hangs up on
reboot.

Windows cannot start and the message that comes up is that there is a
missing file that should be reinstalled.

<Windows Root>\system32\hal.dll

I went into setup and changed the boot order to have it start from the CD
and put the XP CD-ROM into the drive. The CD drive starts and the same
failure comes up.We are still stuck with the same message and cannot
proceed.



So I can't get to safe mode or restore.



How should this problem be approached?



Charlie

 

[Guest]

I am helping a neighbor. She has a new Dell and XP pro. She had been on
dial-up and is trying to get onto DSL. As an AOL user she wants to stay with
AOL. When we tried to set it up before, we could not find the modem. She has
an alarm system and had to get a filter for the alarm. Today the service guy
came with the filter and tried to set her up on DSL. His approach was to set
her up with the DSL ISP and not AOL. This is all just background.



I don't have clue what the alarm guy did, but now the system hangs up on
reboot.

Windows cannot start and the message that comes up is that there is a
missing file that should be reinstalled.

<Windows Root>\system32\hal.dll

I went into setup and changed the boot order to have it start from the CD
and put the XP CD-ROM into the drive. The CD drive starts and the same
failure comes up.We are still stuck with the same message and cannot
proceed.



So I can't get to safe mode or restore.



How should this problem be approached?



Charlie

Hi Charlie, the hardware abstraction layer is corrupted or missing.

1- Restart with your Windows XP CD into your CD-ROM .

2- XP's setup program will automatically start and files will be loaded to
memory

3-When you reach the Welcome to Setup screen and you get the options for
setup, Repair Select the Repair option by pressing R.

4- This will start the Recovery console
5 - As you only have one installation on your PC you need to press the
number which is relevant to your installations location. This, obviously it
will be 1.

6- Type in your Administrator password. If you are using Windows XP Home
edition the administrator password is blank or if you didn't set up an admin
password for the installation by default will be blank so press Enter to
leave blank.

7-Now type bootcfg /list

8- A list will now appear of all the entries in your boot.ini file

9- Then type bootcfg /rebuild

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect

You will get this:
'load identifier' : is the name you put in between the quotes "Windows XP
Professional" or if it "Windows XP Home Edition"
'load options' would be : /fastdetect

10- Your boot.ini file should now be repaired
Type exit after editing the boot.ini and Reboot your machine to see if the
the problem has been resolved.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477

HTH.
Let us know.
Regards,
nass

 

[Malke]

I am helping a neighbor. She has a new Dell and XP pro. She had been on
dial-up and is trying to get onto DSL. As an AOL user she wants to stay
with AOL. When we tried to set it up before, we could not find the modem.
She has an alarm system and had to get a filter for the alarm. Today the
service guy came with the filter and tried to set her up on DSL. His
approach was to set
her up with the DSL ISP and not AOL. This is all just background.

I don't have clue what the alarm guy did, but now the system hangs up on
reboot.

Windows cannot start and the message that comes up is that there is a
missing file that should be reinstalled.

<Windows Root>\system32\hal.dll

I went into setup and changed the boot order to have it start from the CD
and put the XP CD-ROM into the drive. The CD drive starts and the same
failure comes up.We are still stuck with the same message and cannot
proceed.

So I can't get to safe mode or restore.

For the hal.dll issue, boot with the XP cd and take R for Repair. This will
put you into the Recovery Console. Assume any password requested is blank
unless you know for sure your neighbor assigned a password to the
Administrator account (not her regular user account). In that case, enter
the Administrator password. At the command prompt, do:

Attrib -H -R -S C:\boot.ini [enter]
DEL C:\boot.ini [enter]
to delete the bad one
BootCfg /Rebuild [enter]

Now you should be able to reboot into Windows.

As for the DSL, she should be on the DSL ISP, not AOL. She can still use her
AOL software - she'll just be accessing the Internet via DSL. The last time
I looked, AOL had a billing plan called "Bring Your Own Access" which costs
less than the full service. Your neighbor should switch to that because
that's what she'll be doing - using AOL's services and software with the
ISP providing DSL.

Malke

 

[Charlie Bress]

So far no success. I cannot get the box to bootup or access the CD-ROM.
I don't know if the XP CD will boot by itself or if it is an autostart
version.
I have change the boot order to make the CD prime. All to no avail. I looked
at the KB file that deals with this and everything is based on getting the
system to read the CD.

The system has a built in diagnostic program that has as an option "OS won't
start" . This ran lots of disk and memory tests etc. and all tests passed.
Not a happy situation.

Charlie

 

[Guest]

Did you get the option that CD something will start press any Key or you
didn't get start at all?.
I will investigate the power supply.
Try to reset the ribbon cable connected to the HDD to the motherboard but be
careful turn the power OFF or unplug the power cord and also just the
connectors and if there is some dust just blow them and out before frying the
motherboard with the static from your Body!.
Then try and boot with the CD in press any key to start with the CD and
proceed with the rest.
P.S Could you boot to any mode like safe Mode or Normal mode?.
HTH.
Regards,
nass