Corrupt hal.dll ?? Boot.ini Problem ??

[Katmandu]

My system currently has (2) physical HDs both have Win XP Pro as the O/S.
The Primary Master is a 2.5G 4500RPM HD. And the Primary Slave is a 40G 7200
RPM HD.

I recently partioned the 40G with (2)Logical drives. I have (1) Extended
drive which incorporates (1) of the Logical drives.

I used to be able to boot from either drive with no problems. Sometime in
the past, I lost the ability to boot from the 40G HD.

I also recently repaired the did a Fix Boot and a Fix MBR via the Recovery
Console. I no longer get "The Blue Screen of Death" error code 0x0000007B.

I now get...... "The hal.dll is missing (which it's not) or corrupted error
message.

My research leads me to believe that the hal.dll "may" be corrupted by a
misconfigured Boot.ini file (??)

My questions are as follows....

1) How many partions does my 40G HD have ? (2) or (3) [3 drive letters] ??

2) Is a corrupted hal.dll actually a Boot.ini file issue ??

3) How does one configure the Boot.ini correctly ??

BTW, my Boot.ini reads as follows.......

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="C Drive: XP Pro"
/fastdetect
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="C Drive: XP Pro" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="E Drive: XP Pro" /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons


Thank you!

ERIC

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Hal.dll=Hardware Abstraction Layer. The fact that the error points there
means that the file does not match the hardware profile it expects to see.
Your boot.ini file indicates that the installation should be loading from
the second partition of the slave drive - does this sound correct to you?
This may help:

"Hardware Configuration Problem" Err Msg Starting Windows [Q314477]
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314477

1) How many partions does my 40G HD have ? (2) or (3) [3 drive letters]

??

You tell us - crystal ball's in the shop, and I'm not good at guessing.
Start/run diskmgmt.msc, what does it tell you about that drive?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

My system currently has (2) physical HDs both have Win XP Pro as the O/S.
The Primary Master is a 2.5G 4500RPM HD. And the Primary Slave is a 40G 7200
RPM HD.

I recently partioned the 40G with (2)Logical drives. I have (1) Extended
drive which incorporates (1) of the Logical drives.

I used to be able to boot from either drive with no problems. Sometime in
the past, I lost the ability to boot from the 40G HD.

I also recently repaired the did a Fix Boot and a Fix MBR via the Recovery
Console. I no longer get "The Blue Screen of Death" error code 0x0000007B.

I now get...... "The hal.dll is missing (which it's not) or corrupted error
message.

My research leads me to believe that the hal.dll "may" be corrupted by a
misconfigured Boot.ini file (??)

My questions are as follows....

1) How many partions does my 40G HD have ? (2) or (3) [3 drive letters] ??

2) Is a corrupted hal.dll actually a Boot.ini file issue ??

3) How does one configure the Boot.ini correctly ??

BTW, my Boot.ini reads as follows.......

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="C Drive: XP Pro"
/fastdetect
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="C Drive: XP Pro" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="E Drive: XP Pro" /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons


Thank you!

ERIC