Cloned Drive XP Pro showing hal.dll error

[RickC]

I ran out of space on my original 120gig main drive and acquired a new 500gig
Maxtor. I cloned the 120 over to the new 500. It booted clean initally, but
after a few days showed a hal.dll error. I have since tried many of the
suggested hal.dll error solution and have gone to the lengths of reformatting
the 500, reinstalling the system from and Acronis backup image, re-cloning
from the source drive. Each time it boots initially but at some point within
the first few days, I get the hal.dll error again. The source and new
drives are clean physically and for viruses. The fact that, at least for a
short period after cloning or recovering the Acronis backup image, I can both
warm boot and cold boot without getting the hal.dll error is making me think
XP is doing something. Any insight on what is going on or how to fix it will
be appreciated. I alerady have a second internal hard drive and two
externals to handle my files and backups, so not gettin gthis up and running
is a non starter. I've reinstalled the old drive and pulled enough files to
keep me limping along, but I need to get it resolved.

Thanks

 

[Xandros]

In spite of this being a new drive it is possible that it has corruption.
Download a diagnostic tool from the hard drive manufacturer's site and run
it.

 

[Andrew E.]

The copied clone files might be corrupted...The best way to clone/mirror IDE
hds is to set new hd as slave to current C: on same IDE cable.Format the hd
in xp,once thru,go to run,type:XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r Agree to all in
the
DOS window.Also,D: being the slave hd but if asigned diffrent letter,then use
that letter instead...Also,maxtor hds are really junk,1 yr is about all
thier good
for,WDC or Seagate (5 yr warranty),are the better choice...

 

[DL]

Its also possible your pwr supply isnt up to the load

 

[philo]

I ran out of space on my original 120gig main drive and acquired a new 500gig
Maxtor. I cloned the 120 over to the new 500. It booted clean initally, but
after a few days showed a hal.dll error. I have since tried many of the
suggested hal.dll error solution and have gone to the lengths of reformatting
the 500, reinstalling the system from and Acronis backup image, re-cloning
from the source drive. Each time it boots initially but at some point within
the first few days, I get the hal.dll error again. The source and new
drives are clean physically and for viruses. The fact that, at least for a
short period after cloning or recovering the Acronis backup image, I can both
warm boot and cold boot without getting the hal.dll error is making me think
XP is doing something. Any insight on what is going on or how to fix it will
be appreciated. I alerady have a second internal hard drive and two
externals to handle my files and backups, so not gettin gthis up and running
is a non starter. I've reinstalled the old drive and pulled enough files to
keep me limping along, but I need to get it resolved.

Thanks

I had a similar thing happen to me and it turned out to be a temperature
problem.
I had the new drive in a removable drive bay that was fan cooled...
but the drive was nevertheless getting hotter then hell.

When I took the drive out of the enclosure and just installed it internally
on the frame...
it ran a *lot* cooler and has remained trouble free.

Though temp. may not be a factor for you...I just thought I'd throw that out
there as a possibility.

 

[RickC]

Thanks Andrew. I was under the impression that XP prevented using the old
xcopy command to make a duplicate drive thjat would actually function as the
boot drive, which is why cloning software was needed to image it over. Is
that not the case?

I agree on the drives but couldn't find 500s in either Segate or WD locally
and didn't want to go smaller. My externals ar WDs.

 

[RickC]

Interesting idea, but I don't think the 500 pulls that much more power then
the 120. I've been running the 120 with a second 400 internal for added
storage and the two externals for over a year with no issues from the core
system. I just got the the point where I only had 6 gig left on the 120 and
needed to get more room.

 

[RickC]

Thanks. It could be a Maxtor thing, but I don't think so at this point. As
I replied to Andrew, I've had two drive mounted internally for a year without
heat issues. The Maxtor is replacing a Segate, so I can't rule out it over
heating after bein gup for a while, but the environment it is in isn't
causing it independently of the drive itself.

 

[RickC]

Xandros, thanks for the thought, but as I noted both drives have been checked
and both are clean physically. I suppose running the diagnostics again can't
hurt. At this point I just hate pulling the system apart again to remount
the foolish thing to do a diagnostic for about the fourth time without
something new to try to fix the situation. I would definitely be an odd disk
corruption to have the drive boot cleanly for one or two days and both warm
and cold boots before suddenly coming into play to cause the boot failure.
I'm still leaning toward some type of XP authentication burried in the system
that says "wait a minute.. I'm supposed to be on a Segate drive number #####"
and then dings the hal.dll or some such foolishness. Because it works for a
couple of days in the beginning, I've almost convinced myself it is happening
when the system checks for Windows updates and the footprint doesn't match
what I have as the original "certified" system with Microsoft. (suspicious
me)

 

[Xandros]

I'd try running the bootcfg /rebuild command from the Recovery Console.
see here http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000648.htm

I must have missed the reference to Seagate in your first post. Check here
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm

BTW if Microsoft didn't like the new configuration when running an
authenticity check it wouldn't generate a hal.dll error. It would simply
give you a message that you need to activate.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I ran out of space on my original 120gig main drive and acquired a
new 500gig Maxtor. I cloned the 120 over to the new 500. It
booted clean initally, but after a few days showed a hal.dll error.
I have since tried many of the suggested hal.dll error solution and
have gone to the lengths of reformatting the 500, reinstalling the
system from and Acronis backup image, re-cloning from the source
drive. Each time it boots initially but at some point within the
first few days, I get the hal.dll error again. The source and new
drives are clean physically and for viruses. The fact that, at
least for a short period after cloning or recovering the Acronis
backup image, I can both warm boot and cold boot without getting
the hal.dll error is making me think XP is doing something. Any
insight on what is going on or how to fix it will be appreciated.
I alerady have a second internal hard drive and two externals to
handle my files and backups, so not gettin gthis up and running is
a non starter. I've reinstalled the old drive and pulled enough
files to keep me limping along, but I need to get it resolved.

I'm sure you have seen this by now:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm

I don't think XP nor Acronis is doing anything if it is working for a short
period of time. Truthfully - it could be bad hardware.

 

[philo]

Thanks. It could be a Maxtor thing, but I don't think so at this point. As
I replied to Andrew, I've had two drive mounted internally for a year without
heat issues. The Maxtor is replacing a Segate, so I can't rule out it over
heating after bein gup for a while, but the environment it is in isn't
causing it independently of the drive itself.

"philo" wrote:

Well I'd feel the drive to see if it's extremely hot...
also run the manufacturer's diagnostic
and even a RAM test

 

[DL]

I had problems with 3 drives, on a sys that had been faultless, they were
all accepted for RMA over a 2 month period.
It transpired the psu was iffy, replaced that, also via rma, no more probs

 

[RickC]

Thanks again. I'm going to run the diagnostics again on the drive while it
is in a failed state just to see if something is messing up that doesn't show
when it has been freshly reformatted or recloned. I had tried all of the
various solutions shown on the segate page you provided the link to,
including the longer version that Shaun Grey had at the end. On reading it
through this time, I noticed that he capped the YES in his comment about
letting it auto detect the drivers it wanted. My recollection was that the
response I had was that it wanted other dlls after accepting the replacement
of the hal.dll, but I may go through that one more time to be certain. It
may have been that I just needed to type YES and hit enter to have it
continue on (my recollection being that when I hit a key it started the
reboot that just brings the error screen back up.) Still, it is worth a shot.

 

[RickC]

Me again, I downloaded the SeaTools diagnostic set from Segate and ran it on
the non-booting Maxtor. Same results, showed clean; ditto on a chkdsk in the
current uncooperative state.

I went back in and replaced the Hal.dll because of that end note on the
Shaun Grey post off the Segate link you provided. My memory wasn't as faulty
as I feared. I don't get anything about drivers, the new error screen after
replacing the hal.dll is

"Windows could not start because of an error in the software.
Please report the problem as:
load needed DLLs for kernel
Please contact your support person to report this problem."

There is nothing after the colon on the report the problem as line. The
kernel comment is on the next line.

 

[RickC]

Shenan, Sorry about the second post over on Deployment. I put most of the
new info, including the latest diagnostic results, in my replies to Xandros.
If it is bad, I can't find a tool that will indicate a problem to this point.