Windows Won't Start Up

[Tret]

I installed windows and whenever I restart the computer.....I get an error that says "Windows Could not Start because the following file is missing or corrupt.
<Windows root?\System32\hal.dll.
Please reinstall a copy of the above file.
So I decided to repair windows same error.....I decided to format the harddrives and reinstall windows and after I restart the computer bam! the problem starts over.


I'm stuck out of ideas and have no idea what i can do.
As for the problem I was having with the video card over is because I didn't have my videocard connected to the power supply.
The only reason I can think of....It's the raid because this is my first time ever using raid.
I go to bios and enable sata raid and add in the 2 raptors. I go to the sata bios and set both of the raptors to raid "striping" and set boot to yes on the harddrives. I also install both nvaid drivers on windows setup and install windows on the raptors.

Thanks,
Gilbert


Everytime I build a computer I always get a problem. But, I always end up fixing the problem.


Everything is stock nothing overclocked.



Specs on Comp:
DFI LanParty NF4 SLi-DR
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo
OCZ Titanium 2GB pc 3200 2-3-2-5
XFX Geforce 7800GTX
OCZ 520W PSU Powerstream
2x 74gb Western Digital Raptors
2x 250gb Seagate Barracuda 7200 Sata 150

 

[xtknight]

It's the RAID, I'm fairly sure.

You could try the XP recovery console fixboot and fixmbr commands.

 

[Tret]

Originally posted by: xtknight
It's the RAID, I'm fairly sure.

You could try the XP recovery console fixboot and fixmbr commands.

What are the commands that I need to try in the recover console?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Tret

Originally posted by: xtknight
It's the RAID, I'm fairly sure.

You could try the XP recovery console fixboot and fixmbr commands.

What are the commands that I need to try in the recover console?

You type:
fixboot
and confirm it
(say yes)
then
fixmbr
(say yes)

Then quit, exit, or whatever the command is to reboot (look under help). Ctrl+Alt+Del might work.

 

[Tret]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: Tret

Originally posted by: xtknight
It's the RAID, I'm fairly sure.

You could try the XP recovery console fixboot and fixmbr commands.

What are the commands that I need to try in the recover console?

You type:
fixboot
and confirm it
(say yes)
then
fixmbr
(say yes)

Then quit, exit, or whatever the command is to reboot (look under help). Ctrl+Alt+Del might work.

crosses fingers


hey it worked! well, I'm going to restart a few more times to make sure.

 

[Tret]

Originally posted by: Tret

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: Tret

Originally posted by: xtknight
It's the RAID, I'm fairly sure.

You could try the XP recovery console fixboot and fixmbr commands.

What are the commands that I need to try in the recover console?

You type:
fixboot
and confirm it
(say yes)
then
fixmbr
(say yes)

Then quit, exit, or whatever the command is to reboot (look under help). Ctrl+Alt+Del might work.

crosses fingers


hey it worked! well, I'm going to restart a few more times to make sure.

Nevermind it worked like 2 times and after the 3rd restart I get the same problem.

 

[Eureka]

Might be bad RAM/hard drive, friend of mine had that happen to him.

I would try and reconnect all your wiring and RAM... then start freaking out.

Norm

 

[Tret]

Originally posted by: cevilgenius
Might be bad RAM/hard drive, friend of mine had that happen to him.

I would try and reconnect all your wiring and RAM... then start freaking out.

Norm

ok none of it worked.
I'm going to freak out now.

 

[Tret]

bump

 

[KLin]

Originally posted by: Tret

Originally posted by: Tret

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: Tret

Originally posted by: xtknight
It's the RAID, I'm fairly sure.

You could try the XP recovery console fixboot and fixmbr commands.

What are the commands that I need to try in the recover console?

You type:
fixboot
and confirm it
(say yes)
then
fixmbr
(say yes)

Then quit, exit, or whatever the command is to reboot (look under help). Ctrl+Alt+Del might work.

crosses fingers


hey it worked! well, I'm going to restart a few more times to make sure.

Nevermind it worked like 2 times and after the 3rd restart I get the same problem.

Instead of rebooting, you should have been backing up your files the first time you were able to boot up.

 

[Tret]

Originally posted by: KLin

Originally posted by: Tret

Originally posted by: Tret

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: Tret

Originally posted by: xtknight
It's the RAID, I'm fairly sure.

You could try the XP recovery console fixboot and fixmbr commands.

What are the commands that I need to try in the recover console?

You type:
fixboot
and confirm it
(say yes)
then
fixmbr
(say yes)

Then quit, exit, or whatever the command is to reboot (look under help). Ctrl+Alt+Del might work.

crosses fingers


hey it worked! well, I'm going to restart a few more times to make sure.

Nevermind it worked like 2 times and after the 3rd restart I get the same problem.

Instead of rebooting, you should have been backing up your files the first time you were able to boot up.

What do you mean I just format my computer and had nothing important in there.

 

[SJP0tato]

Anytime I've had a problem like this it's due to one of four things:

1. Your windows CD has a scratch/smudge/speck of dirt. This is the most common cause of error, just because it doesn't seem like this could be culprict. The good news is this is easiest to check for, just make sure the CD is clean and free of defects.

2. You have 1 or more bad sticks of RAM. I'm guessing you have a 2nd computer, try downloading and burning an "Ultimate Boot CD". There's a few RAM testers on there. They aren't 100% certain, but they'll usually (probably 9/10 cases) find a bad stick of RAM. Try running 2 or 3 of them & see if this is the problem.

3. You have a bad harddrive. The Ultimate Boot will have a suite of hard drive testers there, find the one for your manufacturer & run both the basic & advanced tests on it. These are usually pretty good at finding out if there's a problem.

4. This is least common, but I've seen where a bad CD drive can cause a disc to give errors after install. If you have another drive you can try, it doesn't hurt to try this as a last resort...I've seen it on 2 out of probably 2000+ computers I've re-installed windows on before.

5. Bad mobo/cpu, also very unlikely, but possible...

Good luck!

 

[Tret]

I'm going to run memtest 86 until tonight.