XP won't boot after MB Chipset Update

[ztrain727]

Hi Everyone,

(Note: this is an OS issue, not a BIOS or hardware problem)

I've been doing some overclocking and as such, I decided I would go ahead and update my MB. Before trying to flash the bios, I figured I would go ahead and install an available chipset update.

I extracted the update and there were two .exe's, one called INFhelp.exe and another infinst_autol.exe. I mistakenly hit INFhelp, and a window came up that said to wait while the INF was updated. The message stayed up for quite some time, so I researched it and found that upon reboot it should work properly (See THIS thread).

I rebooted and got the message that hal.dll was missing. I did a bit of troubleshooting with the XP cd and realized that neither my XP home or XP pro installs (dual booting on two seperate HDD's) were being recognized by the XP pro cd.

I rebooted and started getting "NTDL is missing, hit alt-ctrl-del to reboot". I then went into the repair console and typed bootcfg /rebuild, which found one installation of XP, but since the XP cd drive letters do not match those in Windows, I wasn't sure which install had been found. Anyway, I tried a repair install with an XP home cd (the pro cd still had no repair option) and I ended up with a functional XP home system.

Now, the problem is that this is an "abandoned" xp home install that I stopped using because the internet did and still does not work on it. My primary install is the XP pro install which no longer seems to be recognized and is no longer in the boot loader.

Now, I can of course access all my files on both HDD's since one install is working, but if possible, I'd rather not do a fresh install of XP pro and have to spend days reinstalling all my software/transferring data.

Any ideas on how to make windows recognize my XP pro install and how to then correct the hal.dll and NTDL errors?

 

[jslick]

To recognize the other XP, you need to edit your boot manager file. I'm doing this blind since I'm not using Windows right now: Right-click "My Computer", properties. Find an option to edit the boot.ini file (or something like that); you will probably need to navigate to a different tab. You should get to the point where you can edit your boot.ini file with notepad. Then, add the line for your other XP installation. I'm sorry I can't tell you what this line should be bc I'm not using Windows right now, but it should resemble the first line. You might want to backup your original boot.ini file in case something goes wrong.

I don't know about the other errors, maybe somebody else will be able to help.

 

[ztrain727]

Thanks for the reply.

Any chance you could give me a few more details? I am supposed to edit the boot.ini file and simply add another line for my XP pro install? I should mention that since I posted last, I created a new 8gb partition on my XP home HDD and installed a fresh copy of XP pro so I can get the internet, etc.

 

[jslick]

Any chance you could give me a few more details? I am supposed to edit the boot.ini file and simply add another line for my XP pro install?

Sorry this took so long. I can't boot any XP machines right now so I can't personally check it out. And Vista doesn't use boot.ini. But, I found this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022 on how to edit your boot menu. Yes, you'll simple add another line - but I'm not sure what that line will look like. Sorry I can't help with your other problem; but maybe you'll be able to fix it after you boot (assuming you'll be able to boot).