I formatted my drive and reinstalled XP yesterday and now when my laptop boots up it comes to a gray screen with two OS showing with the first one highlighted. IF I agree to boot to the first one everything is fine and it goes directly to Windows. If I choose the second one it comes up error windows root\system32\hal.dll

How do I get the machine to go directly to boot on the first one and delete the second one. Is this a partition problem. DO I have two Win XP loaded?

Member Avatar for thunderstorm98

Hello and Welcome to Daniweb !

Just you need to configure the NT boot loader its easy..start the windows which is working fine and follow the steps:
click on start> run> type the word msconfig and press ok..it launchs the configuration utility.
go to the tab BOOT.INI and press the button 'check all boot paths' now windows check itself which one is running...if it tell to remove the odd one then say yes.
now restart system and tell me what happens then..

Regards

Thunderstorm98...Bingo! that did it, thank you much for such a quick and easy solution.
That certainly took care of that problem

Hello and Welcome to Daniweb !

Just you need to configure the NT boot loader its easy..start the windows which is working fine and follow the steps:
click on start> run> type the word msconfig and press ok..it launchs the configuration utility.
go to the tab BOOT.INI and press the button 'check all boot paths' now windows check itself which one is running...if it tell to remove the odd one then say yes.
now restart system and tell me what happens then..

Regards

Member Avatar for thunderstorm98

Great !!! you done that..
Please mark as solved to this thread if its realy solved.

Have a nice day..

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.