Problems with boot.ini, system restore, hal.dll

E

esbo

New Member
OK bit of a long title but when I try to do a system restore I get a message hal.dll is missing.

Anyway this is my boot.ini

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons
c:\wubildr.mbr="Ubuntu"


Note I tried ubuntu at one point.
This is the old boot.ini:-

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

I am not sure if the system restore has every worked, well maybe it has I have trouble remembering I normally have no problems and boot normally.
I still have no problems with a normal boot, however with a ssystem restore (recovery) I get this missing hal.dll message.
Second time I tried it it fell over with a blue screen before I even got the message, it seemed to do something before that though, a progress bar went across the screen.


Anyway I don't really understand this so would appreciate some help.

1) What bothers me is I have to partitions on my drive, C: the main windows one and D: the recovery partition.

Now I would expect partition 1 to to be c: but there is no mention of partition 1 in the boot.ini's (although I have no probs on a normal boot).

2) Does the recovery process use the same hal.dll as the normal boot?
If so why can't it find it/use it?
 
OK I just notice the boot.ini on the second partion (D:)

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons
c:\wubildr.mbr="Ubuntu"


This has partition 1 mentioned? which is c:?
I'm confused!!
 
From http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/missinghaldll.htm
Missing Or Corrupt Hal.dll Error Resolution
Steps to Resolve the Missing Or Corrupt Hal.dll Error in Windows XP
.
.
.
Resolution

1. Restart the PC. The hal.dll error could be a fluke.

2. Check for proper boot order in BIOS. You might see the hal.dll error if the boot order in BIOS is first looking at a hard drive other than your main hard drive.

Note: If you've recently changed your boot order or recently flashed your BIOS, this may be what's causing your problem.

3. Run Windows XP System Restore from a command prompt. If this doesn't work or you're receiving the hal.dll error message before you're able to complete this process, move on to the next step.

4. Repair or replace the boot.ini file. This will work if the cause of the problem is actually Windows XP's boot.ini file and not the hal.dll file, which is often times the case.

Note: If repairing the boot.ini does correct the hal.dll issue but the problem reappears after a reboot and you've recently installed Internet Explorer 8 in Windows XP, uninstall IE8. In this specific situation, IE8 could be the root cause of your hal.dll problem.

5. Write a new partition boot sector to the Windows XP system partition. If the partition boot sector has become corrupt or isn't properly configured, you may receive the hal.dll error.

6. Recover data from any bad sectors on your hard drive. If the physical part of your hard drive that stores any part of the hal.dll file has been damaged, you're likely to see errors like this.

7. Restore the hal.dll file from the Windows XP CD. If the hal.dll file is truly the cause of the problem, restoring it from the original Windows XP CD may do the trick.

8. Perform a repair installation of Windows XP. This type of installation should replace any missing or corrupt files. Continue troubleshooting if this does not resolve the issue.

9. Perform a clean installation of Windows XP. This type of installation will completely remove Windows XP from your PC and install it again from scratch.

Note: While this will almost certainly resolve any hal.dll errors, it is a time consuming process due to the fact that all of your data must be backed up and then later restored.

Important: If you can't gain access to your files to back them up, you should understand that you will lose them all if you continue with a clean installation of Windows XP.

10. Test the hard drive. If all else has failed, including the clean installation from the last step, you're most likely facing a hardware issue with your hard drive but you'll want to test it to be sure.

If the drive fails any of your tests, replace the hard drive and then complete a "new" installation of Windows XP.

Applies To
This issue applies to the Windows XP operating system, including Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home Edition. Windows 7 and Windows Vista do not utilize the hal.dll file.
Click to expand...

Try all of those suggestions then post back. ;)

[EDIT]
Here's my boot.ini - this is a single boot machine w/ a hidden 5GB recovery partition.
boot.ini said:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
Click to expand...

Did you fool around with the boot.ini file yourself? Have you tried saving your current boot.ini as boot.ini.old and taking out the ubuntu part and saving that as boot.ini? I believe that you are actually missing hal.dll, but it would be worth a shot? Also, you can try downloading my HAL.DLL and putting it in C:\Windows\System32 and see what that does, if anything. Get it here: http://jeremydean.co.nr/temp/
[/EDIT]
 
Last edited:
OK firstly thanks for your reply dean.

Anyway firstly the system boots up normally, I am using it now :)

So that means the hal.dll is OK surely?

Or does it look for a hal.dll on a different partition?

I do have backup of hal.dll I made ages ago, it looks the same, I could check by comparison, however if I have booted normally it must mean it is OK?

My computer came with windows installed on it and with no windows disk, I think the D: drive is supposed to be the windows CD, or a recovery partition.

As I said earlier there is a boot.bak from 2006

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

=============


OK when I look at the drives in disk management I note that for disk one
that when I look in the bottom right hand window that partition d: is listed before partition c: (my normal 'root drive') that may explain why the boot.ini
says partition 2.


Looking here:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_management.htm

DiskManagement01.jpg


You can see it is done the way I would expect with c: before d:. I think that explains why c: seems to be partition 2.

I may try with the old boot.ini later I am a bit reluctant at the moment because I am worried I will screw something up (leave well alone!!), or at least wait untill I feel a bit more confident and have looked at other things.


Also I think I created a recovery disk when I first got the computer, it is a HP, I think they set it up in their own way which I would rather they had not because it may be a bit different from a standard computer, however I have never had any problems in normal operations, if I get a problem I just reboot and it seems to sort itself out. They seem to have done it to make it fool proof or whatever.


The only reason I was thinking of doing a recovery was because of a problem which occured with MSCONFIG when I changed startup items, which said:-
"An access denied error was returned while attempting to change a service...You may need to log on as administrator...."

However the changes are in fact made so it is not a problem as far as using the computer is concerned but it is rather undesirable none the less.
Also when my computer goes into sleep mode it won't wake up from the keyboard or mouse, that seemed to occur at about the same time (last month), but again that's not a major problem.

Both those problems seem to have no solution that works for me (and others)
when you google them.

So... I may try some changes to boot.ini but I need to be 100% sure what is happening and understand exactly what recovery does.

I did try doing a system restore from the MSCONFIG but it failed, maybe I can try that again but I am unsure if it would fix the problems anyway as I am unsure exactly what it does.

Also I need to get my old computer running with internet access incase I screw up!!

Thanks for your input. :)
 
How are you going about doing a system restore? On the newer HPs, you can just continuously press F11 until the System Recovery option comes up, which is a fancy way of saying "restore to factory condition."

No way should it be missing any file by doing it that way, as D:\ is a System Recovery partition, and is Read Only (or damn well should be if it ain't!). So I don't see how you could have a problem there.

You must be talking about going to a restore point. I say why not just back up what you need and do the factory restore?
 
deanj20 said:
How are you going about doing a system restore? On the newer HPs, you can just continuously press F11 until the System Recovery option comes up, which is a fancy way of saying "restore to factory condition."

No way should it be missing any file by doing it that way, as D:\ is a System Recovery partition, and is Read Only (or damn well should be if it ain't!). So I don't see how you could have a problem there.

You must be talking about going to a restore point. I say why not just back up what you need and do the factory restore?
Click to expand...

Yes I may wel be confused about this, I have never done this kind of stuff before, I have hand no need, "system restore", "system recovery", "system restore point", they all sound pretty similar to me!!

You are right d: is read only, infact I cannot even read most of it, all the folders have a lock on them.

I guess I do not want to do a system restore, rather 'roll back' to a restore point.

I presume by factory restore you mean system restore? all a bit confusing when you aint familair.

Anyway when I boot up I get 3 options

1 Windows
2 windows recovery?
3 ubuntu

Yes there is an option to hit f10 before that which I presume is system restore?

Anyway thats why I was unwilling to do anything drastic yet because I am unfamilair and I need to be sure what I am doing so I will have to try those options and get familair so I know exactly what I am talking about.

Is option 2 the same as the restore you can do from msconfig/tools?

I only want to go back a month or so.

I will try again tomorrow.
 
Actually one thing I will try before all that is uninstalling AVG anti-virus!!
Often it has been such programs which screwed by system in the past (ZoneAlarm)
and it has also caused CPU usage (high) with firefox.
 
What I'm talking about has nothing to do with Windows. HPs have what's essentially an image of your HDD the day you took it home from the store, and it's saved on D:\ and is read-only for obvious reasons. When you first boot the machine, Press F11 Repeatedly and you will go into System Recovery mode. This formats drive C:\ and maps the recovery image on D:\ to C:\.

Why not just back up your personal stuff and completely restore the system? It doesn't take long, and you'll clean up all that crap that utilities like CCleaner don't catch, all of the programs you've installed and long forgotten about will be gone... It's like getting a brand new computer!!!

Some people get nervous about doing fresh installs, but I don't understand why - just ask yourself "what do I have on here that I can't get back within a couple of hours?" - and then put that stuff on an external/seperate internal HDD or a flash drive, a DVD-R, whatever. Reinstall the OS and copy it back over. badda-bing, badda-boom. You're done, with a brand-new, freshly installed OS running as good as it did the day you brought the computer home.
 
OK well I think that is what I might have tried to do.
When I boot up the first screen has, I think F1 for set-up and F10 for some sort of recovery/restore?
I think then I hit that I first got a progress bar along the screen and then, well it crashed with a blue screen!! I may have also got the hal.dll missing from that too, or maybe it was from selecting option 2 on the boot menu?

From what you say I was lucky it did fall other because otherwise it would have formatted my hard drive and lost tonnes of valuable data.
I am reluctant to do that at the moment because:-
a) it might not cure the problem
b) it might not actually work and leave me with a dead computer!!! It's seems it may have a problem anyway as I got errors when I tried it before,

Does it actually prompt you and inform you it is about to destroy your c: drive data or does it simply get on with it?
 
OK I rebooted and it says F10=Recovery Console.
I hit F10 and it did not give an error this time, however I just quit out of it.
Then when it rebooted I let it go to the options menu and option 2 is the recovery console,
which is the same thing again I presume.

So no error on that this time, not sure why, maybe it does some automatic recovery when it fails?

Anyhow I will look at it more later.
 
Recovery Console!=System Recovery. Please press F11 and see if that does anything for you - I know it's not on the boot-up screen, but just try it. And I just don't think you would get a "file missing" error running the System Recovery, as it is running from a read-only partition, and therefore couldn't be missing anything unless your HDD is failing.

Just give it a shot - I'm very curious to know what happens if you press F11.
 
Well didn't you say it reformats my hard drive? (c:).


Anyway, I think if I select F10 recovery it goes to the select menu 1,2,3
then if I select 2 recovery, then quit from that and select 1 normal I get the hal.dll missing, thne when I reboot again it boots up fine.

Anyway I am going to use msconfig to do a diaognostic startup and see what happens,
 
:D

OK I tried that, I had set the sleep timer to 1 minute and it tried to sleep during start up!! However pressing the keyboard woke it up :D

Also I can make changes to msconfig without that error.

Also I note it had turned all the services on.

I will write more later.

Anyway at the moment it seems to be cured but I will have to see how it goes.
 
Ok I made somem changes back to normal and and I have the wake-up problem back so I need to undo some, and also need to find which stuff I can turn off.
 
OK the changes made, startup turned on:-


O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Pinnacle WebUpdater] "C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\Shared Files\Programs\WebUpdater\WebUpdater.exe" -s -f=UpdateVersion.xml -

url=http://cdn.***********.com/SupportFiles
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [MSConfig] C:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\MSConfig.exe /auto
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TkBellExe] "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Update_OB\realsched.exe" -osboot
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Monitor] C:\WINDOWS\PixArt\PAC7311\Monitor.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AVG9_TRAY] C:\PROGRA~1\AVG\AVG9\avgtray.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AVG7_CC] C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgcc.exe /STARTUP
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AlcxMonitor] ALCXMNTR.EXE
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [ShaPlus Bandwidth Meter] "C:\Program Files\ShaPlus Bandwidth Meter\ShaPlus Bandwidth Meter" /s
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [swg] "C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleToolbarNotifier\GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe"
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [PMCLoader] C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\TVCenter Pro\PMCLoader.exe



Hmmm... there are also some services, but one of the prime suspects is there ie AVG so I will try turning those off and rebooting.
I would put money on it being AVG aganist the rest of the changes put togeather includeing the services I turned off. ;)
 
Hmm well it's no AVG however I have arrived at a confused place, it looked like something called "CPUCool server service" was the problem because when I enabled well when it went to sleep the PC did wake up, unfortunately that was *before* I hit a key :(

So now it will ssleep and then wake up almost immediately this now seems to happen whether I enable or disable CPUcool!! :eek:

I am also having cofusion with system standby, turn off monitor and turn off hard drive, as the first is the same as the latter two?? But they have different settings???
 
I have set standby to two minutes and that seems to work.
The problem with MSconfig and wake up seem to have gone, it may be hard work getting them to reoccur now!! (But I will keep an eye out for them :) )
 
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