Error Loading Operating System

[the phelper]

Today I bought a new hard drive to replace the hard drive that is in
my Shuttle SN41G2 v3.

It's currently got an Athlon 3000 with a 120GB hard disk. It works
fine.

I plugged in the new drive on the secondary SATA channel, and rebooted
off the existing hard disk. Windows recognized I'd installed a new
disk, and then I'd formatted the new drive as a single partition.

Then I shut down, removed the original drive, and replaced it with the
new drive on the primary SATA channel.

I'm able to boot from the WinXP CD, install WinXP up until the point
the system needs to reboot. One it reboots, it gets to the screen
where it says hit any key to boot from CD. Since I'm not booting from
the CD, I wait it out, then I get "Error Loading Operating System".

I've since rebotted with floppy and done the fdisk /mbr deal, but no
luck, same error.

Any suggestions?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Today I bought a new hard drive to replace the hard drive that is in
my Shuttle SN41G2 v3.

It's currently got an Athlon 3000 with a 120GB hard disk. It works
fine.

I plugged in the new drive on the secondary SATA channel, and rebooted
off the existing hard disk. Windows recognized I'd installed a new
disk, and then I'd formatted the new drive as a single partition.

Then I shut down, removed the original drive, and replaced it with the
new drive on the primary SATA channel.

I'm able to boot from the WinXP CD, install WinXP up until the point
the system needs to reboot. One it reboots, it gets to the screen
where it says hit any key to boot from CD. Since I'm not booting from
the CD, I wait it out, then I get "Error Loading Operating System".

I've since rebotted with floppy and done the fdisk /mbr deal, but no
luck, same error.

Any suggestions?

For starters you should determine if you only have a boot problem
or if Windows is not correctly installed. You can do it like so:

- Format a floppy disk under WinXP.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your WinXP CD to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Start a Command Prompt and type this command:
type c:\boot.ini > a:\boot.ini
- Swap your disks.
- Boot the machine with this floppy.

Does it work?

 

[the phelper]

For starters you should determine if you only have a boot problem
or if Windows is not correctly installed. You can do it like so:

- Format a floppy disk under WinXP.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your WinXP CD to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Start a Command Prompt and type this command:
type c:\boot.ini > a:\boot.ini
- Swap your disks.
- Boot the machine with this floppy.

Does it work?

I formatted the 3.5" floppy under WinXp w/o any system files.

I copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from \386 of my WinXP CD to A:\
I opened a command prompt box, typed in TYPE C:\BOOT.INI > A:\BOOT.INI
and it created the boot.ini file on my A:\

Took the floppy to the other computer, and when I boot up I get "Non
System Disk or Disk Error" and that's it.

There are three files on the A: drive, NTDETECT.com, NTLDR, and
BOOT.ini. I'm not sure what's wrong.

I'll try again...

 

[the phelper]

I formatted the 3.5" floppy under WinXp w/o any system files.

I copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from \386 of my WinXP CD to A:\
I opened a command prompt box, typed in TYPE C:\BOOT.INI > A:\BOOT.INI
and it created the boot.ini file on my A:\

Took the floppy to the other computer, and when I boot up I get "Non
System Disk or Disk Error" and that's it.

There are three files on the A: drive, NTDETECT.com, NTLDR, and
BOOT.ini. I'm not sure what's wrong.

I'll try again...

I did all the steps again, starting with the format.

Now when I boot, I get the Verifying DMI Pool Data screen on boot up,
and it sort of seems like a hang, with the floppy light staying on...
then after a couple of minutes, I get:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or
corrupt:
<windows root>\system32\hal32.dll.
Please reinstall a copy of the above file.

 

[the phelper]

I did all the steps again, starting with the format.

Now when I boot, I get the Verifying DMI Pool Data screen on boot up,
and it sort of seems like a hang, with the floppy light staying on...
then after a couple of minutes, I get:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or
corrupt:
<windows root>\system32\hal32.dll.
Please reinstall a copy of the above file.

Could it be that the new drive is SATA2, while the original is SATA1?

I know the shuttle doesn't support the speed of SATA2, but I'd expect
it to fall back to SATA1 speeds.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I did all the steps again, starting with the format.

Now when I boot, I get the Verifying DMI Pool Data screen on boot up,
and it sort of seems like a hang, with the floppy light staying on...
then after a couple of minutes, I get:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or
corrupt:
<windows root>\system32\hal32.dll.
Please reinstall a copy of the above file.

I think that you booted off the hard disk in your first test.
In your second test you finally booted off the floppy disk.

The error messages you quote suggest that something is
badly wrong with your new installation. What it is I cannot
tell. You probably have to start all over again.