Media Direct and the old "hal.dll missing or corrupt" problem

It happened to me yesterday when i accidentally hit the Media Direct buttion when the laptop was turned OFF
I escaped from MD and turned the lap on as usual, then the error message "window root\system32\hal.dll missing or corrupt" appeared and windows cannot start

I tried almost every solutions i can find, none of them work.
Is there anyone faced the same thing and can help me out? do i need to install everything?
(the strange thing is that when i used Recovery Console and bootcfg /rebuild command, the prompt command indicates windows installation at F:\minint. Whether there is smthing wrong with the partition table?)

PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

(My lappy: E1505, Core Duo T7200 2.0 GHz, 2Gb Ram,....)

Many thanks

 

Hi,

You working with XP?
Looks to me that your boot.ini is gone. Can you check if the file is still there? (file is hidden)

If not create a boot.ini and place it in your root of c:\
The text below is taken from my pc which has XP installed on partition 1 c:\

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn



Greetings.

 

It actually appears your drive is setup how mine was on my last laptop. Try pressing the Media Direct button again. What I figured out was that my drive has a "layered" partition setup. It switches tables when you go to Media Direct. If you exit improperly then it might not properly restore the table to what it should be.

 

Thanks guys!

Yes I was working with XP, the thing is it does not allow me to start Windows in any mode, so how can I edit the boot.ini and put it back to C:\ ????
I am not capable of DOS at all

I tried to push the Media Direct button again, the Media Direct screen appeared and then again the error message about the missing hal.dll popped up

What can I do now??? I cannot reformat and reinstall windows now as the hard disk doesnt fit any drive hub. Today i removed it but still dont know how can i have a back up before reformatting. And WILL reinstalling solve the problem ??????

Please more solutions please

 

Create boot.ini file (new txt file via notepad, save as boot.ini) with the data I placed in my first reply.

1) Using a floppy disk:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305595

Put boot.ini on floppy, boot from floppy


2) Using boot CD:
Create Bootable CD, see http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/#cdromsi

Make sure to put the boot.ini on the cd before burning the bootable cd

Cheers.

 

Kind of unclear what you got when performing the 'bootcfg /rebuild"... What exactly did it report??

"Total Identified Windows Installs: XX"

I do have my suspicions about the current configuration of your Partition Table, but you'd need to get at it via DOS to confirm. Would entail either a bootable CD [as mentioned] or a bootable thumbdrive.

wrt A reinstall of Windows.... Yes that should get things back, but would open up another can of worms wrt MediaDirect operation. Have you added/removed any partitions since you got the laptop???

Sorry to not be much help at this point...


vr

Mark