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Computer will not read hard drive

BigPete

Senior member
May 28, 2001
729
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The power went out while we were out of the house and all the computers were turned off because of it. When we returned home, my wifes computer booted to the error message "System file c:\windows\system32\hal.dll corrupt or missing".

The problem is that I formatted using a different drive entirely. When I plug the old drive in to get the information off of it, it shows up in windows and I can even double click on it to read the initial directory structure. After that, when I try to view the contents of the rest of the folders, windows hangs for a bit and tells me that drive is not formatted.

The drive seems to be in good mechincal order. I'm guessing that something was fubared during the power outage and windows can't tell what type of filesystem is on it or whatever. With a linux live CD of any flavor do the trick? Is there a 3rd party program out there that can read the drive?
 

BigPete

Senior member
May 28, 2001
729
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0
No, I haven't tried that yet. Can that screw up the drive at all... any more than it already is?