Hal.dll not found or corrupt after slave drive connected

[Glenn]

I Just copied and installed a new 160 Gig Ultra IDE drive. This drive was
replaces my original 10 gig master and 40 gig slave. Both original drives
work great, just the 10 gig (C was too small. After copying the 10 gig to
the new 160 gig I can not connect the 40 gig drive back as a slave as it
was before. With the 40 gig slave installed ( yes the jumpers are set
correctly on the slave , checked many times ) I can not boot the 160 gig
master drive. I get a message telling me that <root
directory>windows\hal.dll is not found or corrupt. I have re-installed
hal.dll several times as well as the whole operating system.

However, if I disconnect the slave ( 40 gig) I have no problem 160 gig
master boots fine. I have looked at the Boot.ini on the master drive and it
correctly ( I think ) points only to 1 partition and 1 operating system.
identified as Windows XP Professional

I have no desire to boot from the 40 gig, and never have.

any suggestions appreciated

Glenn

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

Boot with a Windows 98 Startup disk and run FDISK Make sure you only have
one partition (on the new drive) marked as the "Active" partition. If you
don't have a Win98 boot disk, you can download the files to create one from
www.bootdisk.com

 

[Glenn]

Doug,

Thank you...yes There is only one partition...Windows correctly shows approx
148 Gig after Format..and it is active. Don't ubnderstand what the slave has
to do with the problem since I am not trying to boot it or use a dual boot
....



Glenn

 

[D.Currie]

I Just copied and installed a new 160 Gig Ultra IDE drive. This drive was
replaces my original 10 gig master and 40 gig slave. Both original drives
work great, just the 10 gig (C was too small. After copying the 10 gig to
the new 160 gig I can not connect the 40 gig drive back as a slave as it
was before. With the 40 gig slave installed ( yes the jumpers are set
correctly on the slave , checked many times ) I can not boot the 160 gig
master drive. I get a message telling me that <root
directory>windows\hal.dll is not found or corrupt. I have re-installed
hal.dll several times as well as the whole operating system.

However, if I disconnect the slave ( 40 gig) I have no problem 160 gig
master boots fine. I have looked at the Boot.ini on the master drive and it
correctly ( I think ) points only to 1 partition and 1 operating system.
identified as Windows XP Professional

I have no desire to boot from the 40 gig, and never have.

any suggestions appreciated

Glenn

You checked the jumper on the slave, but have you double-checked the master?
Some drives use a different setting for master with slave as opposed to
master alone.

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

You need to look at the 40 gig drive in FDISK and make sure there are no
active partitions there. If necessary, change the active partition on the
new drive, then change it back.

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

Good point. Western Digital drives are like this.

 

[Glenn]

You are correct and this one does..yes I did...and the Bios does see both
drives as slave and master...Just can't get the master to boot with the
slave connected...

Glenn

 

[D.Currie]

What do you have on the secondary IDE? Could you move that second hard drive
there and see what happens?

 

[Kelly]

Hi,

Suggestions:

HAL=Hardware Abstraction Layer

How to Move a Windows XP Installation to Different Hardware
http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBJ/tip4800/rh4839.htm

Situations in Which Windows May Not Start in Safe Mode
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q199175

How to Troubleshoot Hardware Abstraction Layer Issues
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q237556

More information and a workaround here:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_h.htm#xp_hall.dll

 

[Glenn]

I tried to move the slave over to master...but No go...since installing the
drivers for the 160 gig drive...the slave ( which has a copy of windows XP
on it ) will not be seen by the bios...It makes me scratch my head...


Glenn

 

[Alex Nichol]

I Just copied and installed a new 160 Gig Ultra IDE drive. This drive was
replaces my original 10 gig master and 40 gig slave. Both original drives
work great, just the 10 gig (C was too small. After copying the 10 gigto
the new 160 gig I can not connect the 40 gig drive back as a slave as it
was before. With the 40 gig slave installed ( yes the jumpers are set
correctly on the slave , checked many times ) I can not boot the 160 gig
master drive. I get a message telling me that <root
directory>windows\hal.dll is not found or corrupt. I have re-installed
hal.dll several times as well as the whole operating system.

'Missing Hal.dll indicates that the partition where windows is has moved
its physical location, so it does not appear on the same physical drive
(in the sense of where that is connected to the computer) or same
partition number as before. So the boot is looking in the wrong place,
to load windows components, and hal happens to be the first one it looks
for.

You should be able to rebuild the boot,.ini - though what will happen if
you have simply replaced a hal is uncertain: you may now have an
incomplete one. To rebuild boot.ini, Set the BIOS to boot CD before
Hard Disk. Boot the XP CD and, instead of Setup, take the immediate R
for Repair. Assume any password requested is blank, and TAB over. Give
BootCfg /Rebuild