Corrupt XP after running disk cleanup and partial defrag

Question

I am working on a Dell Latitude D800 laptop issued to our local school district. It is giving errors that the boot.ini file is invalid and system32\hal.dll is corrupt. I hit F8 and F5 but cannot boot into safe mode or to a DOS prompt. The only option is F12 for boot sequence or F2 for setup. F12 just gives hardware choices; no safe mode options. My diag. CD gives uncorrectable errors on several blocks on the hard drive.

I would like to reinstall the op system (XP Professional) without losing data but do not have an original XP op system CD. The reinstallation CD will wipe all data. Any suggestions? Any key tricks to get it to boot into safe mode?

Thanks

rickmktg · Answer

bodybybev wrote:
I am working on a Dell Latitude D800 laptop issued to our local school district. It is giving errors that the boot.ini file is invalid and system32\hal.dll is corrupt. I hit F8 and F5 but cannot boot into safe mode or to a DOS prompt. The only option is F12 for boot sequence or F2 for setup. F12 just gives hardware choices; no safe mode options. My diag. CD gives uncorrectable errors on several blocks on the hard drive.

I would like to reinstall the op system (XP Professional) without losing data but do not have an original XP op system CD. The reinstallation CD will wipe all data. Any suggestions? Any key tricks to get it to boot into safe mode?

Thanks

Your diagnostics indicate the drive has failed.

The reinstallation CD IS the original XP CD. Do an XP REPAIR by booting to it, choose INSTALL, then REPAIR. Data is USUALLY fine after a repair. Or, put it in an external usb holder, copy the data, then replace the drive.

bodybybev · Answer

Thanks for your speed reply Rick. I booted to the recover CD and there were 3 choices:
1) enter to install - this leads me down a path to delete the data and reformat the drive - not an option that I wish to take.

2) I think this is what you are talking about. The choice is to repair the installation using the recover program. This runs for a short while and says type EXIT to reboot. Upon rebooting, the same hal.dll error comes up.

3) Exit

I can boot into safe mode but everything I try results in the same error - hal.dll. I tried booting to the last known good configuration and booting into safe mode but those didn't work either.

Is option 2 the same thing you are talking about or is there a way to run the repair program from a DOS prompt?

rickmktg · Answer

bodybybev wrote:
Thanks for your speed reply Rick. I booted to the recover CD and there were 3 choices:
1) enter to install - this leads me down a path to delete the data and reformat the drive - not an option that I wish to take.

2) I think this is what you are talking about. The choice is to repair the installation using the recover program. This runs for a short while and says type EXIT to reboot. Upon rebooting, the same hal.dll error comes up.

3) Exit

I can boot into safe mode but everything I try results in the same error - hal.dll. I tried booting to the last known good configuration and booting into safe mode but those didn't work either.

Is option 2 the same thing you are talking about or is there a way to run the repair program from a DOS prompt?

No, option 1, INSTALL, which allows a REPAIR option.

Keep in mind this is likely a temporary fix.

bodybybev · Answer

Sorry, Rick, there is no repair option under install in option 1. I am researching HAL.DLL on Microsoft's site but I think this file is something that is created and can't be downloaded to fix the problem. Maybe I can go buy a new version of XP Professional and reinstall Windows without losing anything???

rickmktg · Answer

bodybybev wrote:
Sorry, Rick, there is no repair option under install in option 1. I am researching HAL.DLL on Microsoft's site but I think this file is something that is created and can't be downloaded to fix the problem. Maybe I can go buy a new version of XP Professional and reinstall Windows without losing anything???

Sure there is, and if you buy XP you'll have the same disk you currently have...

RoHe · Answer

Read the part about fixing hal.dll here: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm Ron

bodybybev · Answer

Thanks Ron. I did run the first part of this solution to strip the attributes from boot.ini and delete it. The hard drive had too many errors for the bootcfg to work.

What I finally did was reinstall XP under a new directory (newxp). The laptop now boots to XP OK but Of course, I can't get to the windwos folder to copy the new hal.dll. When I was using the recover utility from my reinstallation CD, I couldn't get to any layers past the root of C. The message kept saying "access denied" when I ran attrib or copied files.

So now I can at least get to my files and back them up, but everything is under the new user "admin" that I set up and my old data, programs, etc. are under "local user". In the days B4 XP this was much easier because there was only 1 user. Now I don't know how to login as local user and get rid of the admin user I created. Or maybe there is an easier way to see and copy the old hal.dll file from the windows\system32 folder. I have all teh hidden files turned on to be viewable but since I boot to the new installation, that must block the original one - it still gives me the hal.dll error.

RoHe · Answer

If your drive is failing, as Rick suggested, the best thing is back up the files to CD and replace the drive. You could try downloading hal.dll from here, but there's no guarantee it's the right version for your build of XP. http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?hal

XP denies access to the C: drive as security measure to prevent copying of files by an intruder. You might want to change the group policy under the new install of XP to allow full access to the C: so you can rescue your files, but again, if there are that many problems on the drive, replace it before it bites you again.

Click Start>Run.
Type in: gpedit.msc
Click OK
Change only the setting to allow full access to all files on C:, exit and reboot.

Ron

Windows General

Corrupt XP after running disk cleanup and partial defrag

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