After doing some experiments with my laptop XP, trying to create a NTFS copy of my FAT32 partition, I got the infamous HAL.DLL message. I could not recover using the tricks I knew, so I just bought a new HD (80 MG fujitsu) and restored from a back up. That worked fine. When I restored the old HD from the same backup, I got the HAL.DLL error again. This sequence happened once again with the new HD, and so I bought a second new HD and restored it fine. Now I have two HDs that will give a HAL.DLL error on loading my backup XP. The only thing I can think of is that XP stores some drive information somewhere hidden on the physical drive what is causing the problem. I have tried clearing the drive with KILLDISK.EXE, bit this did not solve the problem. Any suggestions? I hate to kept buying new hard drives just to make sure they are clean!

What exactly hal.dll error message do you mean?
Some problems with hal.dll are caused by a bad boot.ini (you can try to run bootcfg /rebuild from the recovery console - maybe it will help).

Let me try to be more clear. Three disk drives are involved:

HD3 MHV2080AH NT61T692ATJY 80GB 5400
HD2 MHV2080AH NT61T742PTFG 80GB 5400
HD1 HTS721080G9AT00 Y4GX17ML 80GB 7200

Computer: Laptop Toshiba Satellite 1805-S274
Backup software: PowerQuest DriveImage 2002
Partition software: PowerQuest Partition Magic 8.0

HD1 was installed and working well in the laptop. It had an ME partition and an XP partition (both FAT32) and some FAT32 data partitions.
I did some NTFS experiments, and the XP partition would not boot, giving a
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file."
message. I reinstalled the XP partition from a recent (before the experiment) backup, but got the same message. Recovery Console is dead, and other F8 options are either dead or give the HAL message. After frustrating attempts to research and fix this problem, I bought HD2 from a local company, installed it in my laptop, and restored the XP partition from the backup. It worked fine!


A few months later, foolishly doing NTFS experiments again, I got the HAL.DLL message again. Restoring from the backup did not fix it. I bought HD3, installed it in the laptop, restored the XP partition, and everything was fine. I then ran KILLDISK.EXE and MHDD (fasterase) and Spinrite 6.0 on HD2, restored from the backup, with the same HAL.DLL message.

Some more facts: ME runs fine on all the HDs, the XP partition is accessable by ME when I connect the HD through USB and my LAN; all the HAL.DLL and BOOT.INI files compare equal; the drives are usable as FAT32 data partitions.

The only explanation I can think of is that XP wrote and is checking something invisible on the drive (perhaps in the SA).

At this stage all I care about is how to restore the drives to their original (new) state. I do not need to recover any data, and do not even care what I did wrong or what is causing the trouble.

Just do a low level format and you are on go!

How does the "low level format" differ from MHDD fasterase or KILLDISK ? Or do you mean a factory format (which also rewrites the SD)? I have no capability to do the later (as far as I know).

Have you tried just to simply format one of those drives and install a fresh copy of Windows (not from a backup)?

No, the laptop did not come with an install disk, just a preloaded hard drive with no CD image.

Well I would suggest that You borrow an XP cd from someone and try to install a fresh copy (if you have a license or anything I think that I will be legal - or maybe download/get an evaluation copy of windows) and check if this would solve the problem because I think that all the drives are good but windows when imaged and then cloned to another disk can cause problems like this. Why? Ask Microsoft. When I changed my configuration and left only the hard disk with windows believe it or not but I had a similar problem. So give it a try.

Well, I think I will declare failure and give up. It is not that important - an 80GB laptop drive only costs $70 retail. If it is me vs Bill, I haven't got a chance!

Hi geoclock,
It's not a faulty harddrive, just a bad image.
As you probably got a Xp sticker underneath your laptop, you can install a proper Xp (Xp-Home, Xp-Pro) and then call Microsoft and ask them to help you activate it with your Xp-Key on the sticker.
After that is done you can go out to the website of your laptop manufacturer and download the proper drivers for your Vga, Lan, Modem e.t.c....

So don't bin the harddrive, it's not faulty....if you still want to bin it..bin it to me

Regards

Bosse

_________________
Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se

Even better just do a repair install if you have a valid key and a copy of XP you can borrow, go as if you were going to install a fresh copy of XP and choose r (repair) for second menu option, punch in key and you are good to go with no driver worries

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I think ST is a sub company of Lucas