Boot disk wrong location

[Sam Weber]

Greetings,

I've recently found out that I cannot boot my computer.
It originally gave me a message about a missing "hal.dll"
file, but I assumed it was on an old hard drive that it
was pointing to at the default WINDOWS location. So I
unplugged all harddrives except my main one.

Now, when I start and run WINDOWS REPAIR on the XP Home
Setup Disk, it won't even ask me what WINDOWS to use. The
current disk name is E:, and I want it to be C: so it
will boot using that hard drive. It's not working, I've
tried to use the "FIXBOOT" and "FIXMBR" commands in the
repair section, but it isn't working. It is giving me a
disk read error when I start my computer without the disk.

How can I fix this? How can I change E: to C: and make
that bootup with that WINDOWS? Thank you!

 

[Rich Barry]

Sam, if you have more than one hard drive your boot files are on the C:
even though your WinXP is
located on E: drive. Your mbr and boot sector are there also. In order to
Repair you have to have the C:
drive hooked up.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Greetings,

I've recently found out that I cannot boot my computer.
It originally gave me a message about a missing "hal.dll"
file, but I assumed it was on an old hard drive that it
was pointing to at the default WINDOWS location. So I
unplugged all harddrives except my main one.

Now, when I start and run WINDOWS REPAIR on the XP Home
Setup Disk, it won't even ask me what WINDOWS to use. The
current disk name is E:, and I want it to be C: so it
will boot using that hard drive. It's not working, I've
tried to use the "FIXBOOT" and "FIXMBR" commands in the
repair section, but it isn't working. It is giving me a
disk read error when I start my computer without the disk.

How can I fix this? How can I change E: to C: and make
that bootup with that WINDOWS? Thank you!

If you get a "disk read" error then you should first run the
free diagnostic program that your hard disk manufacturer
makes available on his home site.

 

[Sam Weber]

Rich, this hard drive that XP is on was originally the C:
drive though. It got changed to E. Do I still need to
hook the old hard drive up and make it the C, then run
mbr and boot fix commands? Thanks!

 

[Rich Barry]

Sam, configure the computer the way it was when you installed WinXP Home.
Then try a Repair Install.
I'm not sure that you have the Recovery Console on the XP Home CD. But
if so, you can try that first.
Check here on how to use it. Using the commands Bootcfg, Fixboot and
Fixmbr you may get the system
going. You can also use ChkDsk from there which Pegasus recommended.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];314058



http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm