The instructions for loading the hive are about as clear as they can be
on the web link that I provided, I can't explain it any clearer than
what it is there. As for the <windowsroot>\system32 hal.dll error that
was probably brought about by your slaving the drive onto the same IDE
drive cable as the host operating system, this in turn may have led to a
change of the disk's ordinal number which in turn would lead to an
improper rdisk value in the boot.ini's ARC path, in short this may have
led to an improper Master/Slave arrangement of the disks. Try removing
the slaved disk from the computer and make sure that the host disk is in
its original location on the cable and then see if the computer will
boot properly. If you can get the computer to boot properly you can
mount the disk of the broken installation back into the host computer
but place it on the other IDE cable instead of on the same one as the
host disk, this should avoid the missing hal.dll message.
If you still cannot boot the host computer try making a floppy boot
diskette by following the instructions here:
http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/ntboot/
Another poster who has the same problem as you asked about this
yesterday and I gave him the following advice, you may find it to be of
help in your efforts to fix your installation:
Other than replacing registry files the only thing that you can do about
the error with the Recovery Console is verify and confirm the presence
of the Autochk.exe file in the System32 folder, if the file is missing
you can copy it from the Windows XP CD to the System32 folder.
Otherwise, to fix this error, you will have to remotely edit the Session
Manager's BootExecute value in the registry. Another way around the
problem would be to follow the instructions here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545 If you want you can do Part One
of the article then log on as per Part Two but instead of carrying
through with the rest of the instructions you can use Regedit to load
the System hive that you renamed in Part One (c:\windows\tmp\system.bak)
and then at all the numbered ControlSets in that same old hive edit the
Session Manager's BootExecute value. You can copy the BootExecuteValue
from the following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager
to the all the numbered Control Sets in the old renamed and loaded hive:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\Session Manager
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Control\Session Manager
After you do the changes to the old System hive log back on to the
Recovery Console and reverse the changes made earlier, delete the files
in the /config folder:
delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default
and replace them with the ones that you backed up earlier and
subsequently repaired:
copy c:\windows\tmp\system.bak c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\tmp\software.bak c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\tmp\security.bak c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\tmp\default.bak c:\windows\system32\config\default
See here for easy to follow instruction on how to load the old System
hive:
http://www.rwin.ch/xp-live/regedit.htm You can also do this
without using the Recovery Console but you will have to remove the disk
from the broken machine and mount it in another Windows XP machine.
John
I have an HP machine running