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HDD Failure?
- Thread starter Deiz
- Start date
unhappy_mage
[H]ard|DCer of the Month - October 2005
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2004
- Messages
- 11,455
What does it do? "Unbootable" is a rather wide range of problems. Have you tried doing a "repair" installation of Windows?
Update..
Unable to recover through recovery installation.
Edit: For the last while the recovery screen has not been an option, so my definition of "recovery installation," is parallel Windows installation, followed by a drag-and-drop of most standard DLLs as well as a new BOOT.ini
When I try to boot to the non-functioning copy of Windows, I get a message telling me that hal.dll is missing - But it's right there, in the system32 folder.
This could also be a sign of a bad boot.ini, I think, but that's been rectified already.
Edit 2: So, as I gather, it's not possible to get the recovery screen (That is, an XP install over the existing install that doesn't wipe the Documents and Settings folder,) from an OEM XP CD.
With a bone-stock boot.ini and a non-corrupt hal.dll I'm still getting the same error.
Running out of ideas here.
Edit 3:
After doing the parallel installation and grabbing the apparently corrupt hal.dll, and fixing the boot.ini, I left a back-up copy of the original Windows folder in C:\ under the name of Windows1 (As the parallel install had been Windows0.)
However, when I went to double-check the boot.ini through the recovery console, the only Windows installation it reported on that drive was the parallel install, stuffed away in the recycle bin.
Edit 4: Taking the parallel copy out of the recycle bin, and booting to it, I was then able to start an XP re-install on the drive and successfully get to the repair screen.. But only the parallel copy was displayed.
Is it possible to force the installer to recognize the other installation?
Is anybody able to help? Seems to me like I'm journaling my successes and failures.
Unable to recover through recovery installation.
Edit: For the last while the recovery screen has not been an option, so my definition of "recovery installation," is parallel Windows installation, followed by a drag-and-drop of most standard DLLs as well as a new BOOT.ini
When I try to boot to the non-functioning copy of Windows, I get a message telling me that hal.dll is missing - But it's right there, in the system32 folder.
This could also be a sign of a bad boot.ini, I think, but that's been rectified already.
Edit 2: So, as I gather, it's not possible to get the recovery screen (That is, an XP install over the existing install that doesn't wipe the Documents and Settings folder,) from an OEM XP CD.
With a bone-stock boot.ini and a non-corrupt hal.dll I'm still getting the same error.
Running out of ideas here.
Edit 3:
After doing the parallel installation and grabbing the apparently corrupt hal.dll, and fixing the boot.ini, I left a back-up copy of the original Windows folder in C:\ under the name of Windows1 (As the parallel install had been Windows0.)
However, when I went to double-check the boot.ini through the recovery console, the only Windows installation it reported on that drive was the parallel install, stuffed away in the recycle bin.
Edit 4: Taking the parallel copy out of the recycle bin, and booting to it, I was then able to start an XP re-install on the drive and successfully get to the repair screen.. But only the parallel copy was displayed.
Is it possible to force the installer to recognize the other installation?
Is anybody able to help? Seems to me like I'm journaling my successes and failures.