bootup and HAL

[Guest]

Okay - here is a problem I'm sure you've all heard before. My computer was
out of its head and doing some very weird things. My IT friend suggested
that I format the drive and reinstall XP Pro. When I finished and tried to
boot the system I got the old 'file missing or corrupt - hal.dll' error.

I have researched this online and have followed all the suggestions I found.
I reformatted the again and did another install - no help. I tried editing
the boot.ini, rebuilding the boot.ini, ect - no help. I tried a repair using
the XP CD - no help. I tried NTFS and FAT 32 file systems to see if that
helped - it didn't. I've done about everything I can think of except
installing Win98 and doing an upgrade install. I haven't hit it with a
hammer, either - yet.

If anyone has and suggestions, please, please let me know what they are.

Thanks in advance.
radman

 

[Rich Barry]

Did you check at Kellys
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm

 

[Guest]

Yes, I did - several times, in fact. Nothing I try seems to fix the problem.
Could be I'm not doing it right,but it doesn't seem that difficult.

The last thing I did was write the entire drive with '0''s using the
diagnostic tool from Maxtor. (I scanned the drive first for bad clusters,
but it said the drive is fine.) I thought perhaps there were some corrupt
files still on the drive, but after reinstalling XP, I got the same error on
boot up.

Any suggestions??

rad

 

[Rich Barry]

If you drive is a PATA I would move it to another IDE connector and
make sure the Ribbon Cable is 80 wire. If SATA
did you use a Drive Overlay to install it or PCI Card??

 

[Guest]

Rich,

You'll probably think I'm a moron, but I don't know for sure if it is a PATA
or SATA. It does have an 80 wire cable. All the low level format and
reinstall got me was reassigned drive letters. The only other IDE connection
is for the CD drives - will those work?

The drive is a Maxtor & I did the format with powermax diagnostic tool from
their web site. I'm 'bout ready to take the dang thing to the shop.

rad

 

[Rich Barry]

Did you try going into the Bios and Setting it to Fail Safe Default or
Optimal. Go to PnP/PCI and enabled reset
configuration. Boot Sector Anti Virus should be disabled. PATA is the
older IDE configuration. SATA is the newer
Serial ATA configuration which uses a much smaller cable. If you are
using 80 wire then it's PATA.