I posted a follow-up on this on Ben's reply, and it has yet to be posted after 3 attempts in over an hour. It had the hardware compliment in it among many other things. "The major parts are Asus P4B533 mobo, P4 Northwood 2.4ghz, 512mb PC2700, 64mb ATI AIW Radeon 7500, WD800JB hard drive (ATA100, 80gb, 7200rpm, 8mb buffer), 66mhz PCI Intel Pro gigabit MT1000 NIC, integrated CMI 6ch. audio, Teac 540E (40x24x48 8mb buffer CDRW), Asus CD-S520 CDROM (change it to an Artec 56x after the first time the CDROM disappeared), 66mhz PCI Promise Ultra TX100 controller card for the HD".
After I installed XP, the only thing I installed afterwards was my printer (HP R40xi copier, scanner, printer) which was days ago. So what's going to happen if I have to install new hardware? I formatted this time using NTFS. My BIOS has not been updated, yet it has been accessed. Ok, I now know how to restore hal.dll, but this brings me back to the question of what keeps happening to it, and how to keep this from happening. Thanks Peter, -Clint God Bless Us All Clint Hamilton, Owner Want to exchange links with us? http://OrpheusComputing.com � ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Kaulback" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> One thing to know first off with XP is that once it is installed on a system, it is very difficult to make hardware changes of any kind without affecting the Hardware Access Layer or starting the WPA. Updating the BIOS might do this. If your hardware disappears from the BIOS then it is a hardware issue unrelated to XP software issues. When the hal.dll is corrupted you can fix it by running the repair off of the cd, just boot from the cd and run the second repair feature. Does this machine have removable drives? These setups do require a different setup, I think I have a setup script for these but it must be modified for each unique setup. The recovery console, when installed on the drive only appears in the boot menu, so you will only see it at startup. But sometimes a repair of XP won't cut it, so you might have to mount the NTFS drives from a boot disk and fiddle with the registry from there, or if you have ERD Commander you can use it to aid you. ERD Commander is expensive at $400.00 though. Or you are left only with reinstalling XP after wiping the drive. It might happen. What are your hardware specs Clint? Peter Kaulback In the hour of 03:05 AM 07/03/2003 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] spoke this: >Oh well, looks like it's back to win98 yet again. I see I'm >not alone with this problem, but still cannot find out from >anywhere WHY it is happening, WHAT is causing it to happen, >and HOW to STOP It from happening. Apparently, my boot.ini >keeps getting screwed up! > >A few days ago was the first time this happened, and since it >happened on a test run of XP on another HD, I put it off as >being a HD problem. Obviously it's not. I put XP Pro on my >good main HD, everything went perfect....up until now. I >restarted minutes ago, and the SAME thing happened. Would not >boot. Screen said the same thing about hal.dll being missing >or corrupted. I found out that the boot.ini file will cause >this, or, maybe it's the hal.dll file that is causing the >boot.ini file to get corrupted. Which is it, and what is >causing this? > >The first time this happened, I just went ahead and put the >good HD on, and put XP on it and didn't bother with the old >HD. THIS time, minutes ago, some similar odd things happened >during this period of not being able to boot up. One, is the >CDROM drive DISAPPEARS from the BIOS! I have my HD on a >controller card, CDROM as PRI Master, CDRW drive as SEC >Master. I CHANGED the CDROM drive, so it is NOT the same one >from a few days ago, and changed ALL of the IDE cables on the >entire PC! What does this disappearing CDROM drive have to do >with hal.dll and the boot.ini?????? The CDROM drive not only >disappears from the POST screen ("detecting primary >master.........none found") but when I go into the BIOS setup, >the CDROM is gone from there was well! Only the CDRW drive >shows up! After repeated restarts, shutting the PC down, and >several times changing the area in the BIOS for drive detect, >specifically changing "Pri Master ..........[auto]" area in >the BIOS to "CDROM" and back to "[auto]" it finally shows up >again as "56x CDROM". During all this restarting, XP of >course still is not booting and is presenting me with that >options screen (OF WHICH THE SAME WAS APPEARING A >FEW DAYS AGO when I first experienced this problem), >which is something like "start windows XP >professional", and the other I think is "windows XP >professional setup". It states to arrow up or down to select. >Well, the arrow keys won't work. Pressing either of them >brings you to the "SETUP"! After several attempts, for some >reason I was finally able to select "start windows XP >professional", and the PC boots fine! > >Since I was aware of this problem, I had saved my boot.ini >file, made a backup of it right after I got XP installed on >this HD. It reads: > >[boot loader] >timeout=5 >default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS >[operating systems] >multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows >XP Professional" /fastdetect > >Also on the HD, I see a file called 'boot.ini.backup' under >\windows\pss which reads the same: > >[boot loader] >timeout=5 >default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS >[operating systems] >multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows >XP Professional" /fastdetect > >..same as the good original file. The new, now current, >obviously corrupted version reads: > >[Boot Loader] >Timeout=5 >Default=C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT >[Operating Systems] >multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows >XP Professional" /fastdetect >C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows XP >Professional Setup" > >...and from what I found regarding >C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT, that is for a DUAL boot OS! XP >is the ONLY OS on this HD! > >My 'event viewer' shows an error in the "applications" area: > >"The description for Event ID ( 1000 ) in Source ( Windows >Setup ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the >necessary registry information or message DLL files to display >messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the >/AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and >Support for details. The following information is part of the >event: winnt32.exe, 5.1.2600.0, unknown, 0.0.0.0, 59d86598." > >The only thing done prior to this, was that I tried to install >the "Recovery Console" and did so like MS suggests here, >http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;30765 4 >by running: "[driver letter]:\I386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons . The >"Recovery Console" was not anywhere on my HD, so obviously it >was not installed by default. All I have regarding backup or >recovery of any kind is "backup" under system tools. Since I >needed to backup the HD, and I wanted to get all the tools in >place to be able to recovery from an OS failure, I wanted to >get this installed. Obviously this is what changed the >boot.ini file, but why once again will it not boot and states >hal.dll is missing or corrupted? Why the error in the event >viewer? I STOPPED the installation of the recovery console, >because I didn't "like what it was doing". I didn't even get >a chance to click the "next" button on one of the pages of the >'install wizard', the program immediately closed out of that >window, and started downloaded something from MS! I stopped >because I never got a chance to read the window it closed out, >of which on it was several options of some kind. > >So....did my stopping it cause this error in the 'event >viewer'? If not, what did? Why does hal.dll keep coming up >missing or corrupted on XP systems? How can this be fixed and >prevented? What do the mysterious disappearing CDROM >drives have to do with all of this since that is not even OS >dependent? It certainly cannot be coincidental. > >Is this "recovery console" even needed or will booting from >the CD do the EXACT same thing? If it will, then I obviously >will not install it. But this brings me back to the problem >of the hal.dll problem. >Thanks for any info, >-Clint ============= PCWorks Mailing List ================= Don't see your post? Check our posting guidelines & make sure you've followed proper posting procedures, http://pcworkers.com/rules.htm Contact list owner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Unsubscribing and other changes: http://pcworkers.com =====================================================
