can't reinstall xp after reformatting due to system crash

[Guest]

Long story, sorry. Can't remember exactly when, but I had to reinstall xp
on my grandson's computer but wasn't aware I had to re-register it. About 10
days ago the drive that it was crashed. I went into the c drive and ran
virus and spyware programs to see if that was the problem and after deleting
some suspicious files, I tried to get into that drive. I received a message
that I was trying to run and unregistered copy of windows and did I want to
register it. I clicked yes, and all that happened was the drive opened into
just a background period. I tried ctrl, alt, del, but nothing. I tried
several times to reinstall xp using my cd but the only thing I got was "do
you want to boot using cd". So, I reformatted the drive using windows and
then got a message telling me it couldnt find the hal.dll and to install it.
I then edited the boot.ini, deleting everything after windows/ hoping that I
could use my xp disk but I was still got the message about the hal.dll . So,
what do I do next? Can I install thru the dos prompt (I don't know the
proper proceedure so would need instructions) Is there a way for me to make
the d drive act like it did when it was first partitioned or do I need to
unpartition it and then repartition it and if so how do I do that. Boy, what
a mess! Sorry

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Boot to your XP CD. You'll have the option of repairing if the original
installation is detected or re-installing. Try repair first; it might work.

If that doesn't work, you can re-install the OS and reactivate, but you lose
anything you installed before the problem.

HTH,
Dennis

 

[Microsoft]

Uhm, in my experience, when you get the 'hal.dll' error message, Windows
setup can't find the Windows installation you'd want to repair, however, all
is not lost. I had that problem a few days ago when I'd just finished a
fresh Windows installation, after tinkering with Partition Magic trying to
enlarge the partition. Luckily I managed to recover the Windows installation
as follows:

Boot from the Windows CD. The first option you get is to use the Recovery
Console. This may be your only chance if the lost Windows install doesn't
show up. Tell setup you want to use the recovery console. Type HELP at the
command line to get a list of all the commands you can use. The one you're
looking for is 'BOOTCNFG' or something very similar. Type HELP followed by
the command to get a list of switches you can use with it and their meaning.
There are a few switches that let the system find 'lost' Windows
installations and make them bootable again. It worked for me.