Help please, Seti cruncher gone down!

[Confused]

One of my assimilations has gone down!

This is the error it's getting:

"Windows could not start because file is missing/corrupt: <windows root>/system32/hal.dll

Please reinstall"

Or something of the like, that was what i got in a text message

IS there any way to fix this without a reinstall of Windows? Reinstall would mean i need to either get the computer or go to it, and i'm pretty ill at the moment so can't get out!

Thanks

ConfusedBW

 

[IJump]

Try to boot to a dos prompt and copy that file from another computer. That might work if the file is small enought to fit on a floppy or if you have a win98 boot disk that you can boot with CD-ROM support.

 

[Wiz]

Hey, grab a little perspective: Your health comes first - seti after. Get Well Dammit!!!

You will not likley recover from a corrupted hardware abstraction layer so you will likely have to reinstall.
(got ghost?)
Maybe the HDD is bad?

 

[Crazee]

Which Windows OS version? Is the computer multiproc or not?

 

[Confused]

Well, it's not Seti i'm worrying about, it's my mate's computer and i don't like it when they don't work!

I've asked if she'll be able to bring it round, so i can just stay sitting on my backside while i let Windows install on it! I know the procedure off by heart seeing as i've had to reinstall it on my server 6 times in the past 2 days on my server to get it sharing the internet!

Power button.......Press any key......F8 (I agree)......Esc (Don't repair)......D (Delete partition)......Enter.......L.......C......Enter (or size of partition)........Enter......Up Up Up Up (Format NTFS (Quick)) Enter......wait.......so on and so on!

Just got another text message, she will bring it round about 9 (1.5hrs) so anything we can think of before then that doesn't involve reinstalling Windows will be great!

No ghost image, but i have Ghost, and she has a CDRW drive, so i think i'll make an image for her! Oh, and one of my Server while i'm at it now that it works and hardware won't be changing!

It's Windows XP Pro, and following specs:

MSI 6340 (i think, it's an OEM one anyway) w/ on board sound
Athlon B 1.2GHz
256 PC133 RAM
Realtek 8139 NIC
40gb hdd
some PCI modem (got drivers, but she uses cable modem now anyway)


ConfusedBW

 

[Wiz]

Yeah, I don't think you want to try putting the HAL from another computer on this one... Hardware Abstraction Layer... Sounds like you have some version of NT there. (WinNT, W2K, WinXP)
Yeah, the reinstall gets a bit monotonous doesn't it? Sometimes it's the only way (and the quickest way).

Isn't there a way to boot to the "Last Known Good" config?

 

[IJump]

I didn't pay attention to the file name.


Maybe a re-install would be better............

 

[Confused]

I didn't think of the last known good config....i'll try it when i get it here soon.

CBW

 

[Confused]

OK.

Computer is here, tried Last Known Good Configuration, same error.


Tried to run Windows XP Setup from CD, and reinstall over the top (can't format, he has her computer science write up on the HDD), and when it comes to partition information it says:

Partition 1 <Unknown) 39088MB


If i hit enter on this to try to install to this partition, i get the following error:



<< An error occured while Setup was updating partition information on:

39088MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup press F3 >>



Is there ANY way to recover the files on the hard disk, cos i know she has spent quite a long time on the writeup and can't really afford to be without a computer, and losing the writeup



ConfusedBW

 

[IJump]

What file system is on the drive? How big are the files on the drive that you need to get off?

Now you are back to booting from a floppy and trying to copy the files off. If you have a zip drive, you can get the DOS drivers so you don't have to copy files one floppy at a time. Is there an F8 boot menu option in XP? That might also let you boot if you can go into a command prompt only, or a command prompt with network support and copy over the network.

 

[Crazee]

You could put the hard drive in as a slave on another machine that is running Win2K or WinXP. Other than that without a set of recovery disks I don't think you will be able to get it going and I am not sure that even with recovery disks that you could get it going again.

 

[Wiz]

Maybe. Try pulling the disk and setting it up as a slave in a working system. Depending on file encryption settings you might be able to recover some. Then put it back, reformat, check disk a lot, pray, reinstall.

 

[JustStarting]

I'm not sure this applies to XP, but in Win 98, there is a system file checker that allows you to extract a file from the CD. Go to System Tools> System Information- click on the Tools tab and select System File Checker. In 98 it gives you the option to scan for missing files or extract a file from a location (cd). I have used it for missing .dll and .vxd files numerous times without a hitch. Like I said before- this is in Win 98, but I'm sure XP must have a similiar utility.