K
Kayuni
Long story short, several days ago I was gaming, and happened to be running a
passive defragmentation utility in the background. Now, I don't know if
either of these, or a combination of the two, happened to be particularly
fatal, but the end result was an XP install that would not boot.
Gave me a generic unbootable error.
I impulsively ran CHKDSK from the XP CD's recovery console. Drive checked
out fine, however, the chkdsk operation took nearly two hours to complete.
I've got an OEM XP CD so I wasn't immediately able to do a repair install,
so I did a parallel XP install on the same drive.
At this point, I had both a Windows and Windows0 folder, the latter being
the parallel install.
I booted to it, and then ran the XP CD from inside the OS, and, following a
reboot, attempted a repair installation - However, the XP CD did not see
Windows, only Windows0.
So, after running chkdsk again, and confirming that the disk was intact, I
rebooted to the original Windows install again, for good measure.
This time I got a hal.dll missing or corrupt error.
I assumed it was either a problem with hal.dll, or boot.ini so I attempted
to re-write boot.ini first, via bootcfg /rebuild in the recovery console..
But it didn't see Windows. Only Windows0.
I later booted to Windows0 and replaced the hal.dll in Windows with the one
from Windows0.
Rebooting again, I still got the error. Checked boot.ini, it appeared to be
fine.
However, as it turns out, I'd forgotten to unset the protection flags on it
the first time, so no changes had been made.
I proceeded to unset them and delete boot.ini from the recovery console.
Input boofcfg /rebuild, and, lo and behold, I get an error stating that the
disk is malfunctioning or the file system is partially corrupt.
However, I can still, at this moment, boot to Windows0 without a hitch.. I
just have no boot.ini and had to rename Windows to Windows1, and Windows0 to
Windows so that it became the default sans-boot.ini installation.
I've got some fairly important data on that drive - But it's tied to that
copy of Windows.
I could get all of the data off, but much of it is useless without hours of
reconfiguring programs to recognize partially-complete files, etcetera.
An interesting side effect I've also noticed is that I can no longer use USB
devices to enter BIOS or the boot menu.. Only a circa '97 Compaq PS/2
keyboard.
This has me royally stumped.. Any help is majorly appreciated.
passive defragmentation utility in the background. Now, I don't know if
either of these, or a combination of the two, happened to be particularly
fatal, but the end result was an XP install that would not boot.
Gave me a generic unbootable error.
I impulsively ran CHKDSK from the XP CD's recovery console. Drive checked
out fine, however, the chkdsk operation took nearly two hours to complete.
I've got an OEM XP CD so I wasn't immediately able to do a repair install,
so I did a parallel XP install on the same drive.
At this point, I had both a Windows and Windows0 folder, the latter being
the parallel install.
I booted to it, and then ran the XP CD from inside the OS, and, following a
reboot, attempted a repair installation - However, the XP CD did not see
Windows, only Windows0.
So, after running chkdsk again, and confirming that the disk was intact, I
rebooted to the original Windows install again, for good measure.
This time I got a hal.dll missing or corrupt error.
I assumed it was either a problem with hal.dll, or boot.ini so I attempted
to re-write boot.ini first, via bootcfg /rebuild in the recovery console..
But it didn't see Windows. Only Windows0.
I later booted to Windows0 and replaced the hal.dll in Windows with the one
from Windows0.
Rebooting again, I still got the error. Checked boot.ini, it appeared to be
fine.
However, as it turns out, I'd forgotten to unset the protection flags on it
the first time, so no changes had been made.
I proceeded to unset them and delete boot.ini from the recovery console.
Input boofcfg /rebuild, and, lo and behold, I get an error stating that the
disk is malfunctioning or the file system is partially corrupt.
However, I can still, at this moment, boot to Windows0 without a hitch.. I
just have no boot.ini and had to rename Windows to Windows1, and Windows0 to
Windows so that it became the default sans-boot.ini installation.
I've got some fairly important data on that drive - But it's tied to that
copy of Windows.
I could get all of the data off, but much of it is useless without hours of
reconfiguring programs to recognize partially-complete files, etcetera.
An interesting side effect I've also noticed is that I can no longer use USB
devices to enter BIOS or the boot menu.. Only a circa '97 Compaq PS/2
keyboard.
This has me royally stumped.. Any help is majorly appreciated.