***URGENT*** cant get into windows xp pro

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crgteam25

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Aug 19, 2003
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**URGENT** my computer has been put out of buisneess after installing dirext X 9.0c, after i restarted i got an " invalid boot.ini file etc and the file \system32\hal.dll is corrupt or missing. please reinstall file"
my question is how can i rectify this without formatting or rinstalling. THat is an absolute last resort. I need to find another way around. I have tried making a boot disk from another computer and that has not worked.
i have also tried the recovery console on the xp pro cd. it has not done me any good so far!!!!! I have however run chkdsk (checkdisk) in the recovery console and it reports 1 or more errors. however it does nothing about them..... is there some command to get it to fix those errors?
ANY help would be much appreciated.
THANKS
CRG
 
can you run the boot disk again and then look at the boot.ini file and then tell us what it says here
 
1, thanks for quik reply
2, i was overclocked & i have tried at completely stock speeds
3 this is what my comp says in place of when the loading screen should be visible, it quickly goes to saying "invalid boot.ini" the line under says w/ or w/o a boot disk "booting from c/windows"
the screen then changes to "windows could not start because the following files are corrupt or missing: <winroot>/system32/hal.dll . please reinstall a copy of the file"

4 , the sytem then stays at this screen until you decide to restart.
(once again i do not want to format unless i absolutely have to)
thanks
 
Boot of your XP CD, go into the recovery console, and extract hal.dl_ from (I think) CDROM\i386 to your system32 directory.

Reboot. This should fix it. However, you'll probably need to reapply SP2, as the copy of hal.dll extracted off the CD will be the completely unpatched XP version (not that I'm sure if there are many changes to hal.dll, but better safe than sorry).
 
Should be something along the lines of:

extract hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32

But if you just type `extract`, it should give you the command syntax.
 
First, SP2 didn't cause this. He doesn't mention installing it, we are just used to hearing it. :p Second of all, I would seriously think about doing a repair install, because I think your overclock did this (I've seen this error with oc, hdd gets scrambled sometimes) and its probably more then just hal.dll thats borked. Give it a shot though.
 
Just boot off the XP CD-ROM, press escape at the first screen and then "R" on the second screen, that will reinstall all critical system files without removing any data from your computer... then just do windowsupdate and you're ok. If your normal overclock involves massively out of spec FSB and your board doesn't support PCI/AGP lock to spec speeds you'll probably want to back it up a little bit or return to stock for this procedure.
 
for the chkdsk probs i think its chkdsk /f or /r to fix the problems if not go chkdsk /? for a list of things you can do with chkdsk. Plus try going to recover console and typing FIXBOOT and FIXMBR this might fix your prob
 
psi.monk said:
Just boot off the XP CD-ROM, press escape at the first screen and then "R" on the second screen, that will reinstall all critical system files without removing any data from your computer... then just do windowsupdate and you're ok. If your normal overclock involves massively out of spec FSB and your board doesn't support PCI/AGP lock to spec speeds you'll probably want to back it up a little bit or return to stock for this procedure.
Click to expand...

i do have an fsb/agp lock. how exactly do you boot of the cd? when i get to the first screen esc does nothing. And if i choose to reinstall over the same windows folder i get told that all my documents apps etc will get deleted. i dont see and repair install option anywhere...
thanks again all. nothing yet has worked tho.
 
Like Frontline said, if you ran chkdsk without the /f or /r switch you did nothing.

Chkdsk found errors and you need to repair them.

Run chkdsk /r and see if that fixes the problem before you go taking random stabs at things.
 
thanks a lot everyone
after 9hrs messing around i finally got into windows. thanks god....
 
Could you post what fixed it so everyone can learn something today?
 
I just had a vision of Kyle from South park saying "You know, I learned something today..."
 
i somehow managed to fix it by trying a numver of comands in the recovery console. when i tried each one individually it dint work....i then did all at once : fixboot bootcfg fixmbr chkdsk and i believe one more... then i restarted and luckily got back into windows....with my files intact.. thank god.
thanks again to everyone for all your input!
 
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