Member Avatar for jaydee2

By some twist of fate, I got into the BIOS and changed my boot disc sequence, disabled my floppy to eliminate a problem the startup sequence says that I have and with the XP Pro CD in my CD-RW drive...Windows Setup started.

Setup went through several inspections and offered to format my new 320GB HDD so I let it.
Setup advised me that it had formatted 2 partitions 1 @100 GB and 1@ 200 GB.

Then, it went on to load files. Finished loading files and said now we're going to restart your computer. Off it went and rebooted to the HDD recognition screen, the SCSI BIOS install screen and everything was fine until the "SCSI BIOS Successful" screen showed up.

The next screen has the following message:

"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."

If I touch any key, the machine reboots and goes through the exact same sequence as described above...over and over and over.

Any suggestions?

johnd

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Good to see setup finished — ’s suggestion to try different media is a sensible first check. If the completed install is booting from the wrong drive letter (for example the new Windows shows up as E: instead of C:), changing that letter from inside the running OS isn’t supported. Two practical ways to get the system on C: are given below.

Reinstall (recommended, safest)

  • Power down and physically disconnect every other disk (and USB storage) so only the drive intended for Windows remains.
  • Boot the XP CD and perform a clean install. With no other disks present Windows will normally assign the new install to C:.

Advanced (offline registry edit — risky)

  • Boot a recovery environment (WinPE, another Windows install, or attach the drive to another machine) and run regedit.
  • In regedit: select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> File -> Load Hive and load the offline SYSTEM hive at Windows\System32\Config\SYSTEM under a temporary name.
  • Export the MountedDevices key as a backup, then rename the binary values to swap letters. Typical entries look like:
    \DosDevices\C:
\DosDevices\E:
  • Rename an existing \DosDevices\C: to \DosDevices\Z:, rename \DosDevices\E: to \DosDevices\C:, then rename \DosDevices\Z: to \DosDevices\E:. Unload the hive and reboot.

Cautions

  • Always export the hive before changing anything. Incorrect edits can make the system unbootable; have recovery media ready. Disk Management will not change the system/boot letter while Windows is running. If there’s any doubt, back up data and reinstall with other drives disconnected — it’s the least error-prone fix.

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Member Avatar for sittas87

Is it a original XP disk,have you used it not try another XP disk.It might just happen that the disk do not contain all the files (???????????)

Member Avatar for jaydee2

Is it a original XP disk,have you used it not try another XP disk.It might just happen that the disk do not contain all the files (???????????)

OK.
It is a new disc. I think I have it solved. Finished the installation and got it to boot off the E drive. Now I can't rename the drive to C. Seems that's a no no for windows.

Thanks for the reply.

johnd

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