hard drive crash

HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.

Phil wrote:
HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.

Have you tried the floppy version ? On my Seagate drive, they offered
a floppy version, and it runs something like FreeDOS to bootstrap the
diagnostic. Maybe that would work, if your BIOS will stop looking
at the other storage devices long enough to obey the boot order in
the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...d400eb&x=0&y=0

Have you double checked that you did a "Save and Exit" when in the
BIOS, and that the boot order really does have floppy and CD ahead
of the hard drive ? If you did a "Discard and Exit", maybe the changes
were lost. Also, some computers have a temporary boot menu ("popup")
at BIOS time - sometimes you get to that by pressing F8. On my
particular motherboard, it is bound to the F11 key. If you can get
in there, you should be able to see the CD drive, and select it.

Other options include

1) Disconnect hard drive data cable, to verify the drive isn't holding
up a shared IDE cable data channel. You must be aware of the rules
for master/slace/cable select and filling the connector at the end
of the data cable first, when changing the configuration. Depending on
data cable length and position, this might not be as easy as it
sounds. You can leave power connected on the drive, with no data
cable connected.

2) You could try slaving the drive to a working computer, again,
following the rules for cabling IDE devices (jumpers etc). If
the other machine had a fully working Windows on it, you could
run your diagnostic from there.

At this point, I won't make the post longer, with a data recovery
procedure, as there is no point unless the diagnostic can give you
some results. If the disk really is "dead", then software won't fix
it. If this is just a partition table or file system problem, there
may be some options to get the data back or to fix it.

Paul

Phil wrote:
HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.

Have you tried the floppy version ? On my Seagate drive, they offered
a floppy version, and it runs something like FreeDOS to bootstrap the
diagnostic. Maybe that would work, if your BIOS will stop looking
at the other storage devices long enough to obey the boot order in
the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...d400eb&x=0&y=0

Have you double checked that you did a "Save and Exit" when in the
BIOS, and that the boot order really does have floppy and CD ahead
of the hard drive ? If you did a "Discard and Exit", maybe the changes
were lost. Also, some computers have a temporary boot menu ("popup")
at BIOS time - sometimes you get to that by pressing F8. On my
particular motherboard, it is bound to the F11 key. If you can get
in there, you should be able to see the CD drive, and select it.

Other options include

1) Disconnect hard drive data cable, to verify the drive isn't holding
up a shared IDE cable data channel. You must be aware of the rules
for master/slace/cable select and filling the connector at the end
of the data cable first, when changing the configuration. Depending on
data cable length and position, this might not be as easy as it
sounds. You can leave power connected on the drive, with no data
cable connected.

2) You could try slaving the drive to a working computer, again,
following the rules for cabling IDE devices (jumpers etc). If
the other machine had a fully working Windows on it, you could
run your diagnostic from there.

At this point, I won't make the post longer, with a data recovery
procedure, as there is no point unless the diagnostic can give you
some results. If the disk really is "dead", then software won't fix
it. If this is just a partition table or file system problem, there
may be some options to get the data back or to fix it.

Paul

I attempted the floppy and said not large enough disc, As far as boot
sequence I did esc on startup and chose my boot option from there. It listed
all drives and particular cd drives.



"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.

Have you tried the floppy version ? On my Seagate drive, they offered
a floppy version, and it runs something like FreeDOS to bootstrap the
diagnostic. Maybe that would work, if your BIOS will stop looking
at the other storage devices long enough to obey the boot order in
the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...d400eb&x=0&y=0

Have you double checked that you did a "Save and Exit" when in the
BIOS, and that the boot order really does have floppy and CD ahead
of the hard drive ? If you did a "Discard and Exit", maybe the changes
were lost. Also, some computers have a temporary boot menu ("popup")
at BIOS time - sometimes you get to that by pressing F8. On my
particular motherboard, it is bound to the F11 key. If you can get
in there, you should be able to see the CD drive, and select it.

Other options include

1) Disconnect hard drive data cable, to verify the drive isn't holding
up a shared IDE cable data channel. You must be aware of the rules
for master/slace/cable select and filling the connector at the end
of the data cable first, when changing the configuration. Depending on
data cable length and position, this might not be as easy as it
sounds. You can leave power connected on the drive, with no data
cable connected.

2) You could try slaving the drive to a working computer, again,
following the rules for cabling IDE devices (jumpers etc). If
the other machine had a fully working Windows on it, you could
run your diagnostic from there.

At this point, I won't make the post longer, with a data recovery
procedure, as there is no point unless the diagnostic can give you
some results. If the disk really is "dead", then software won't fix
it. If this is just a partition table or file system problem, there
may be some options to get the data back or to fix it.

Paul

I attempted the floppy and said not large enough disc, As far as boot
sequence I did esc on startup and chose my boot option from there. It listed
all drives and particular cd drives.



"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.

Have you tried the floppy version ? On my Seagate drive, they offered
a floppy version, and it runs something like FreeDOS to bootstrap the
diagnostic. Maybe that would work, if your BIOS will stop looking
at the other storage devices long enough to obey the boot order in
the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...d400eb&x=0&y=0

Have you double checked that you did a "Save and Exit" when in the
BIOS, and that the boot order really does have floppy and CD ahead
of the hard drive ? If you did a "Discard and Exit", maybe the changes
were lost. Also, some computers have a temporary boot menu ("popup")
at BIOS time - sometimes you get to that by pressing F8. On my
particular motherboard, it is bound to the F11 key. If you can get
in there, you should be able to see the CD drive, and select it.

Other options include

1) Disconnect hard drive data cable, to verify the drive isn't holding
up a shared IDE cable data channel. You must be aware of the rules
for master/slace/cable select and filling the connector at the end
of the data cable first, when changing the configuration. Depending on
data cable length and position, this might not be as easy as it
sounds. You can leave power connected on the drive, with no data
cable connected.

2) You could try slaving the drive to a working computer, again,
following the rules for cabling IDE devices (jumpers etc). If
the other machine had a fully working Windows on it, you could
run your diagnostic from there.

At this point, I won't make the post longer, with a data recovery
procedure, as there is no point unless the diagnostic can give you
some results. If the disk really is "dead", then software won't fix
it. If this is just a partition table or file system problem, there
may be some options to get the data back or to fix it.

Paul

I do have another computer that I can slave it to. I'm not sure of the
procedures for running a diagnostic from it though. Do I shut down and insert
disc and restart also? Or run the cd from the cd drive while on?

"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.

Have you tried the floppy version ? On my Seagate drive, they offered
a floppy version, and it runs something like FreeDOS to bootstrap the
diagnostic. Maybe that would work, if your BIOS will stop looking
at the other storage devices long enough to obey the boot order in
the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...d400eb&x=0&y=0

Have you double checked that you did a "Save and Exit" when in the
BIOS, and that the boot order really does have floppy and CD ahead
of the hard drive ? If you did a "Discard and Exit", maybe the changes
were lost. Also, some computers have a temporary boot menu ("popup")
at BIOS time - sometimes you get to that by pressing F8. On my
particular motherboard, it is bound to the F11 key. If you can get
in there, you should be able to see the CD drive, and select it.

Other options include

1) Disconnect hard drive data cable, to verify the drive isn't holding
up a shared IDE cable data channel. You must be aware of the rules
for master/slace/cable select and filling the connector at the end
of the data cable first, when changing the configuration. Depending on
data cable length and position, this might not be as easy as it
sounds. You can leave power connected on the drive, with no data
cable connected.

2) You could try slaving the drive to a working computer, again,
following the rules for cabling IDE devices (jumpers etc). If
the other machine had a fully working Windows on it, you could
run your diagnostic from there.

At this point, I won't make the post longer, with a data recovery
procedure, as there is no point unless the diagnostic can give you
some results. If the disk really is "dead", then software won't fix
it. If this is just a partition table or file system problem, there
may be some options to get the data back or to fix it.

Paul

I do have another computer that I can slave it to. I'm not sure of the
procedures for running a diagnostic from it though. Do I shut down and insert
disc and restart also? Or run the cd from the cd drive while on?

"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.

Have you tried the floppy version ? On my Seagate drive, they offered
a floppy version, and it runs something like FreeDOS to bootstrap the
diagnostic. Maybe that would work, if your BIOS will stop looking
at the other storage devices long enough to obey the boot order in
the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...d400eb&x=0&y=0

Have you double checked that you did a "Save and Exit" when in the
BIOS, and that the boot order really does have floppy and CD ahead
of the hard drive ? If you did a "Discard and Exit", maybe the changes
were lost. Also, some computers have a temporary boot menu ("popup")
at BIOS time - sometimes you get to that by pressing F8. On my
particular motherboard, it is bound to the F11 key. If you can get
in there, you should be able to see the CD drive, and select it.

Other options include

1) Disconnect hard drive data cable, to verify the drive isn't holding
up a shared IDE cable data channel. You must be aware of the rules
for master/slace/cable select and filling the connector at the end
of the data cable first, when changing the configuration. Depending on
data cable length and position, this might not be as easy as it
sounds. You can leave power connected on the drive, with no data
cable connected.

2) You could try slaving the drive to a working computer, again,
following the rules for cabling IDE devices (jumpers etc). If
the other machine had a fully working Windows on it, you could
run your diagnostic from there.

At this point, I won't make the post longer, with a data recovery
procedure, as there is no point unless the diagnostic can give you
some results. If the disk really is "dead", then software won't fix
it. If this is just a partition table or file system problem, there
may be some options to get the data back or to fix it.

Paul

Phil wrote:
I do have another computer that I can slave it to. I'm not sure of the
procedures for running a diagnostic from it though. Do I shut down and insert
disc and restart also? Or run the cd from the cd drive while on?

The diagnostics should describe how they're to be run.

1) If the diagnostic is for CD, it is a standalone bootable diagnostic.
2) If the diagnostic is for floppy, it is a standalone bootable diagnostic.
3) If the diagnostic is for Windows, run regular Windows and execute the program.

The reason the first two options exist, is for situations where Windows is dead,
and you have no Windows available to run (3). Slaving the drive to a second
computer, gives you a working Windows on that computer, so you could then
do (3).

Option 1 and 2, are also useful for Linux users (who have no Windows).

One reason for slaving the drive to another computer, is to eliminate some
hardware issue in the first computer, as the source of the problem. For
example, say a CD drive and a hard drive, share an IDE cable. The IDE
interface on the CD goes bad, and corrupts communication on the shared
IDE cable. Moving the drive to another computer, partners it with some
presumably working hardware.

In all cases, since it is IDE, pay attention to the Master/Slave/Cable
Select rules, and remember if only one drive is on an IDE ribbon cable,
connect it to the end connector. You fill the end connector first, then
a second drive is added to the middle connector. Two drives can be
set to Cable Select on the same cable, as long as the cable has 80 wires.
If the cable happened to be 40 wire, and you were unsure if it supported
cable select, then one drive would be Master and the other drive Slave.
To complicate matters, some drives support Master, others have a
"Master Only" or "Master with Slave" option. Master Only means a situation,
where the drive is on the end of the cable and is by itself. That one,
you could jumper as Master Only, if it happens to be the brand that uses
that jumper notation. So for some brands, you have the simpler Master and
Slave designations. But on one particular brand, they have more than
one flavor of Master. Usually, if you search hard enough, each disk manufacturer
has a generic jumper page, that describes these options.

The label on the drive, describes the basic jumper functions, For
more complicated options, you want the web page for those. For example, the
"Clip to 32GB" jumper option, may not be mentioned on the label of the
drive. And IBM has some weird geometry options, that I've never heard
a use for. But for the basics, the label on the drive should give you
some hint of what to do.

Make sure you record how everything was set up on the original computer,
so you can put it back the way you found it :-)

*******

OK, I just downloaded the WD floppy version. The download itself is 1,585,912 bytes.
*Don't* just try to copy that directly to a floppy. The program *prepares*
a floppy. The program is a formatter. You execute the program, and it will
prompt you for a blank floppy.

This is an executable program. So you just run it. I'm sticking in my
blank floppy for it.

http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/DlgDiagv504f.exe

Works, no problem. The floppy is readable, after the formatter is
finished. The floppy contains 422KB of files, so there is plenty of
room on a 1440K floppy. (If there were other files on the floppy,
they'd get erased by the formatter.)

Good luck,
Paul


"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.
Have you tried the floppy version ? On my Seagate drive, they offered
a floppy version, and it runs something like FreeDOS to bootstrap the
diagnostic. Maybe that would work, if your BIOS will stop looking
at the other storage devices long enough to obey the boot order in
the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...d400eb&x=0&y=0

Have you double checked that you did a "Save and Exit" when in the
BIOS, and that the boot order really does have floppy and CD ahead
of the hard drive ? If you did a "Discard and Exit", maybe the changes
were lost. Also, some computers have a temporary boot menu ("popup")
at BIOS time - sometimes you get to that by pressing F8. On my
particular motherboard, it is bound to the F11 key. If you can get
in there, you should be able to see the CD drive, and select it.

Other options include

1) Disconnect hard drive data cable, to verify the drive isn't holding
up a shared IDE cable data channel. You must be aware of the rules
for master/slace/cable select and filling the connector at the end
of the data cable first, when changing the configuration. Depending on
data cable length and position, this might not be as easy as it
sounds. You can leave power connected on the drive, with no data
cable connected.

2) You could try slaving the drive to a working computer, again,
following the rules for cabling IDE devices (jumpers etc). If
the other machine had a fully working Windows on it, you could
run your diagnostic from there.

At this point, I won't make the post longer, with a data recovery
procedure, as there is no point unless the diagnostic can give you
some results. If the disk really is "dead", then software won't fix
it. If this is just a partition table or file system problem, there
may be some options to get the data back or to fix it.

Paul

Phil wrote:
I do have another computer that I can slave it to. I'm not sure of the
procedures for running a diagnostic from it though. Do I shut down and insert
disc and restart also? Or run the cd from the cd drive while on?

The diagnostics should describe how they're to be run.

1) If the diagnostic is for CD, it is a standalone bootable diagnostic.
2) If the diagnostic is for floppy, it is a standalone bootable diagnostic.
3) If the diagnostic is for Windows, run regular Windows and execute the program.

The reason the first two options exist, is for situations where Windows is dead,
and you have no Windows available to run (3). Slaving the drive to a second
computer, gives you a working Windows on that computer, so you could then
do (3).

Option 1 and 2, are also useful for Linux users (who have no Windows).

One reason for slaving the drive to another computer, is to eliminate some
hardware issue in the first computer, as the source of the problem. For
example, say a CD drive and a hard drive, share an IDE cable. The IDE
interface on the CD goes bad, and corrupts communication on the shared
IDE cable. Moving the drive to another computer, partners it with some
presumably working hardware.

In all cases, since it is IDE, pay attention to the Master/Slave/Cable
Select rules, and remember if only one drive is on an IDE ribbon cable,
connect it to the end connector. You fill the end connector first, then
a second drive is added to the middle connector. Two drives can be
set to Cable Select on the same cable, as long as the cable has 80 wires.
If the cable happened to be 40 wire, and you were unsure if it supported
cable select, then one drive would be Master and the other drive Slave.
To complicate matters, some drives support Master, others have a
"Master Only" or "Master with Slave" option. Master Only means a situation,
where the drive is on the end of the cable and is by itself. That one,
you could jumper as Master Only, if it happens to be the brand that uses
that jumper notation. So for some brands, you have the simpler Master and
Slave designations. But on one particular brand, they have more than
one flavor of Master. Usually, if you search hard enough, each disk manufacturer
has a generic jumper page, that describes these options.

The label on the drive, describes the basic jumper functions, For
more complicated options, you want the web page for those. For example, the
"Clip to 32GB" jumper option, may not be mentioned on the label of the
drive. And IBM has some weird geometry options, that I've never heard
a use for. But for the basics, the label on the drive should give you
some hint of what to do.

Make sure you record how everything was set up on the original computer,
so you can put it back the way you found it :-)

*******

OK, I just downloaded the WD floppy version. The download itself is 1,585,912 bytes.
*Don't* just try to copy that directly to a floppy. The program *prepares*
a floppy. The program is a formatter. You execute the program, and it will
prompt you for a blank floppy.

This is an executable program. So you just run it. I'm sticking in my
blank floppy for it.

http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/DlgDiagv504f.exe

Works, no problem. The floppy is readable, after the formatter is
finished. The floppy contains 422KB of files, so there is plenty of
room on a 1440K floppy. (If there were other files on the floppy,
they'd get erased by the formatter.)

Good luck,
Paul


"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.
Have you tried the floppy version ? On my Seagate drive, they offered
a floppy version, and it runs something like FreeDOS to bootstrap the
diagnostic. Maybe that would work, if your BIOS will stop looking
at the other storage devices long enough to obey the boot order in
the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...d400eb&x=0&y=0

Have you double checked that you did a "Save and Exit" when in the
BIOS, and that the boot order really does have floppy and CD ahead
of the hard drive ? If you did a "Discard and Exit", maybe the changes
were lost. Also, some computers have a temporary boot menu ("popup")
at BIOS time - sometimes you get to that by pressing F8. On my
particular motherboard, it is bound to the F11 key. If you can get
in there, you should be able to see the CD drive, and select it.

Other options include

1) Disconnect hard drive data cable, to verify the drive isn't holding
up a shared IDE cable data channel. You must be aware of the rules
for master/slace/cable select and filling the connector at the end
of the data cable first, when changing the configuration. Depending on
data cable length and position, this might not be as easy as it
sounds. You can leave power connected on the drive, with no data
cable connected.

2) You could try slaving the drive to a working computer, again,
following the rules for cabling IDE devices (jumpers etc). If
the other machine had a fully working Windows on it, you could
run your diagnostic from there.

At this point, I won't make the post longer, with a data recovery
procedure, as there is no point unless the diagnostic can give you
some results. If the disk really is "dead", then software won't fix
it. If this is just a partition table or file system problem, there
may be some options to get the data back or to fix it.

Paul

I put the hard drive in other computer. It is showing the new added drive. It
has "F" and "G". "G" is the HP recovery portion. Should I try to use G to
repair F ? If so and I click on G will it try to go to my original hard drive
(master) and mess up that 1?

thank you so much for the help so far. It is graetly appreciated.

"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
I do have another computer that I can slave it to. I'm not sure of the
procedures for running a diagnostic from it though. Do I shut down and insert
disc and restart also? Or run the cd from the cd drive while on?

The diagnostics should describe how they're to be run.

1) If the diagnostic is for CD, it is a standalone bootable diagnostic.
2) If the diagnostic is for floppy, it is a standalone bootable diagnostic.
3) If the diagnostic is for Windows, run regular Windows and execute the program.

The reason the first two options exist, is for situations where Windows is dead,
and you have no Windows available to run (3). Slaving the drive to a second
computer, gives you a working Windows on that computer, so you could then
do (3).

Option 1 and 2, are also useful for Linux users (who have no Windows).

One reason for slaving the drive to another computer, is to eliminate some
hardware issue in the first computer, as the source of the problem. For
example, say a CD drive and a hard drive, share an IDE cable. The IDE
interface on the CD goes bad, and corrupts communication on the shared
IDE cable. Moving the drive to another computer, partners it with some
presumably working hardware.

In all cases, since it is IDE, pay attention to the Master/Slave/Cable
Select rules, and remember if only one drive is on an IDE ribbon cable,
connect it to the end connector. You fill the end connector first, then
a second drive is added to the middle connector. Two drives can be
set to Cable Select on the same cable, as long as the cable has 80 wires.
If the cable happened to be 40 wire, and you were unsure if it supported
cable select, then one drive would be Master and the other drive Slave.
To complicate matters, some drives support Master, others have a
"Master Only" or "Master with Slave" option. Master Only means a situation,
where the drive is on the end of the cable and is by itself. That one,
you could jumper as Master Only, if it happens to be the brand that uses
that jumper notation. So for some brands, you have the simpler Master and
Slave designations. But on one particular brand, they have more than
one flavor of Master. Usually, if you search hard enough, each disk manufacturer
has a generic jumper page, that describes these options.

The label on the drive, describes the basic jumper functions, For
more complicated options, you want the web page for those. For example, the
"Clip to 32GB" jumper option, may not be mentioned on the label of the
drive. And IBM has some weird geometry options, that I've never heard
a use for. But for the basics, the label on the drive should give you
some hint of what to do.

Make sure you record how everything was set up on the original computer,
so you can put it back the way you found it :-)

*******

OK, I just downloaded the WD floppy version. The download itself is 1,585,912 bytes.
*Don't* just try to copy that directly to a floppy. The program *prepares*
a floppy. The program is a formatter. You execute the program, and it will
prompt you for a blank floppy.

This is an executable program. So you just run it. I'm sticking in my
blank floppy for it.

http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/DlgDiagv504f.exe

Works, no problem. The floppy is readable, after the formatter is
finished. The floppy contains 422KB of files, so there is plenty of
room on a 1440K floppy. (If there were other files on the floppy,
they'd get erased by the formatter.)

Good luck,
Paul


"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.
Have you tried the floppy version ? On my Seagate drive, they offered
a floppy version, and it runs something like FreeDOS to bootstrap the
diagnostic. Maybe that would work, if your BIOS will stop looking
at the other storage devices long enough to obey the boot order in
the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...d400eb&x=0&y=0

Have you double checked that you did a "Save and Exit" when in the
BIOS, and that the boot order really does have floppy and CD ahead
of the hard drive ? If you did a "Discard and Exit", maybe the changes
were lost. Also, some computers have a temporary boot menu ("popup")
at BIOS time - sometimes you get to that by pressing F8. On my
particular motherboard, it is bound to the F11 key. If you can get
in there, you should be able to see the CD drive, and select it.

Other options include

1) Disconnect hard drive data cable, to verify the drive isn't holding
up a shared IDE cable data channel. You must be aware of the rules
for master/slace/cable select and filling the connector at the end
of the data cable first, when changing the configuration. Depending on
data cable length and position, this might not be as easy as it
sounds. You can leave power connected on the drive, with no data
cable connected.

2) You could try slaving the drive to a working computer, again,
following the rules for cabling IDE devices (jumpers etc). If
the other machine had a fully working Windows on it, you could
run your diagnostic from there.

At this point, I won't make the post longer, with a data recovery
procedure, as there is no point unless the diagnostic can give you
some results. If the disk really is "dead", then software won't fix
it. If this is just a partition table or file system problem, there
may be some options to get the data back or to fix it.

Paul

I put the hard drive in other computer. It is showing the new added drive. It
has "F" and "G". "G" is the HP recovery portion. Should I try to use G to
repair F ? If so and I click on G will it try to go to my original hard drive
(master) and mess up that 1?

thank you so much for the help so far. It is graetly appreciated.

"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
I do have another computer that I can slave it to. I'm not sure of the
procedures for running a diagnostic from it though. Do I shut down and insert
disc and restart also? Or run the cd from the cd drive while on?

The diagnostics should describe how they're to be run.

1) If the diagnostic is for CD, it is a standalone bootable diagnostic.
2) If the diagnostic is for floppy, it is a standalone bootable diagnostic.
3) If the diagnostic is for Windows, run regular Windows and execute the program.

The reason the first two options exist, is for situations where Windows is dead,
and you have no Windows available to run (3). Slaving the drive to a second
computer, gives you a working Windows on that computer, so you could then
do (3).

Option 1 and 2, are also useful for Linux users (who have no Windows).

One reason for slaving the drive to another computer, is to eliminate some
hardware issue in the first computer, as the source of the problem. For
example, say a CD drive and a hard drive, share an IDE cable. The IDE
interface on the CD goes bad, and corrupts communication on the shared
IDE cable. Moving the drive to another computer, partners it with some
presumably working hardware.

In all cases, since it is IDE, pay attention to the Master/Slave/Cable
Select rules, and remember if only one drive is on an IDE ribbon cable,
connect it to the end connector. You fill the end connector first, then
a second drive is added to the middle connector. Two drives can be
set to Cable Select on the same cable, as long as the cable has 80 wires.
If the cable happened to be 40 wire, and you were unsure if it supported
cable select, then one drive would be Master and the other drive Slave.
To complicate matters, some drives support Master, others have a
"Master Only" or "Master with Slave" option. Master Only means a situation,
where the drive is on the end of the cable and is by itself. That one,
you could jumper as Master Only, if it happens to be the brand that uses
that jumper notation. So for some brands, you have the simpler Master and
Slave designations. But on one particular brand, they have more than
one flavor of Master. Usually, if you search hard enough, each disk manufacturer
has a generic jumper page, that describes these options.

The label on the drive, describes the basic jumper functions, For
more complicated options, you want the web page for those. For example, the
"Clip to 32GB" jumper option, may not be mentioned on the label of the
drive. And IBM has some weird geometry options, that I've never heard
a use for. But for the basics, the label on the drive should give you
some hint of what to do.

Make sure you record how everything was set up on the original computer,
so you can put it back the way you found it :-)

*******

OK, I just downloaded the WD floppy version. The download itself is 1,585,912 bytes.
*Don't* just try to copy that directly to a floppy. The program *prepares*
a floppy. The program is a formatter. You execute the program, and it will
prompt you for a blank floppy.

This is an executable program. So you just run it. I'm sticking in my
blank floppy for it.

http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/DlgDiagv504f.exe

Works, no problem. The floppy is readable, after the formatter is
finished. The floppy contains 422KB of files, so there is plenty of
room on a 1440K floppy. (If there were other files on the floppy,
they'd get erased by the formatter.)

Good luck,
Paul


"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
HP a324x winxp I have a WD400EB hard drive that crashed. The recovery discs
do not work. I downloaded data lifeguard diagnostic from WD site. I tried
both the windows 1 and the cd 1. I set the booot to cd drive. I'm getting a
long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll I also
tried putting the win xp disc in to see if i could reformat. same error.

downloaded the wd data tools to the desktop then burnt to cd on another
computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you.
Have you tried the floppy version ? On my Seagate drive, they offered
a floppy version, and it runs something like FreeDOS to bootstrap the
diagnostic. Maybe that would work, if your BIOS will stop looking
at the other storage devices long enough to obey the boot order in
the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...d400eb&x=0&y=0

Have you double checked that you did a "Save and Exit" when in the
BIOS, and that the boot order really does have floppy and CD ahead
of the hard drive ? If you did a "Discard and Exit", maybe the changes
were lost. Also, some computers have a temporary boot menu ("popup")
at BIOS time - sometimes you get to that by pressing F8. On my
particular motherboard, it is bound to the F11 key. If you can get
in there, you should be able to see the CD drive, and select it.

Other options include

1) Disconnect hard drive data cable, to verify the drive isn't holding
up a shared IDE cable data channel. You must be aware of the rules
for master/slace/cable select and filling the connector at the end
of the data cable first, when changing the configuration. Depending on
data cable length and position, this might not be as easy as it
sounds. You can leave power connected on the drive, with no data
cable connected.

2) You could try slaving the drive to a working computer, again,
following the rules for cabling IDE devices (jumpers etc). If
the other machine had a fully working Windows on it, you could
run your diagnostic from there.

At this point, I won't make the post longer, with a data recovery
procedure, as there is no point unless the diagnostic can give you
some results. If the disk really is "dead", then software won't fix
it. If this is just a partition table or file system problem, there
may be some options to get the data back or to fix it.

Paul

Phil wrote:
I put the hard drive in other computer. It is showing the new added drive. It
has "F" and "G". "G" is the HP recovery portion. Should I try to use G to
repair F ? If so and I click on G will it try to go to my original hard drive
(master) and mess up that 1?

thank you so much for the help so far. It is graetly appreciated.


Well, that is interesting, that everything seems to be there.

Are there any data files on your old C: (F: perhaps) drive that
you want to keep ? If you were to run the recovery function
at some point, I believe that removes the whole C: including
your data files. If there is anything important, you could put a
copy on the machine you're using for this test.

No, don't attempt to use the recovery partition, while it is
on the slave machine.

Some of those recovery partitions, use things like Ghost, or a
similar concept. So in fact, if you had the appropriate tools
and knowledge, you could rebuild a "factory" hard drive, using
your good working computer. But if you were expecting the
right thing to happen by "one-clicking" something, no,
I expect that isn't going to do what you want. Not while
the drive is slaved in your other computer.

*******

OK, so what we seem to have, is a hard drive that works in one computer,
but doesn't work in the other. Your original symptoms mentioned...

"long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll"

so if that was actually an attempt to boot from the C: drive of the
HP a324x, maybe that is the symptom to concentrate on.

I tried a search on

"file missing or corrupt hal.dll"

This is the first hit I got. It could be the boot.ini is not pointing
at the right partition. Or, it could be that the particular file is missing.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findby...singhaldll.htm

Knowing what you've been doing to the machine recently, might aid
is determining what to do. Read through that page, and see if
anything you've been doing recently, matches.

For example, I've had a boot.ini screwed up, when I was using some
partition management software. It wrote the four primary partition
entries into the partition table, in a different order than they were
originally (which is not a good thing to do). That caused boot.ini
to point to the wrong partition. I didn't get the hal.dll message
though. That was relatively easy to fix. I first got a picture
of the partition table ("fdisk" partition tool in Linux), then
used a text editor to correct the partition number in the
boot line in boot.ini. It booted right up after that.

Work through the page first, but don't get out the claw hammer
just yet and bang on things... At least some of the recovery
procedures will be taking a chance.

If the drive is placed back in the original computer, the jumpers
set to their original condition, are you able to run the
WD test floppy ? Is the computer able to access the drive, to
carry out that test ? I'd want some confidence now, that the
problem is purely what is written on the hard drive, and not
some external influence.

In any case, you're not going to be able to use the recovery
partition on that drive, unless something is working. And
at this point, I'm not recommending that. If, on the other hand,
you're in a hurry, and none of the data on the drive is worth
keeping, then you can always carry out your plan. You'll need
to look in your user manual for the computer, to find what
F key to press to start a recovery. If the recovery process
can't boot itself, in the same way that WinXP can't boot itself
(get an error message), then you'll know that some pre-requisite
health issue still exists.

So, to some extent, what you do next may depend on how much time
you've got to spend on it. I'm guessing at this point, that
it could be repaired, without "using the hammer". But if this
method of communication is too slow to get the job done, then
you can always carry out your plan.

Since F: and G: showed up on the other computer, that implies
there is nothing wrong with the partition table. It doesn't
guarantee that the entries are in the same order as they
used to be in. So it doesn't prove all aspects of what is
on the drive are correct.

While you've got F: and G: available to you, do a search
and see if you can find one or more copies of hal.dll.
According to my Device Manager, the first file here is the
one the system needs. I don't really think this file has gone missing.

C:\windows\system32\hal.dll
C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386\sp3.cab (copy inside the cab file)

To look at the partition table on the disk, you can use this tool,
selecting the hard drive from the menu. Unzip and run the executable.

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip

The size in sectors, at the end of each line, should give you some idea
how big the partition is. In the following example, the second partition entry
is 20971520 sectors, and multiplying by 512 bytes per sector, gives
10,737,418,240 bytes. So if I knew my C drive was 10.7GB, then I'd know
it was the second partition entry.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c5...TEditVista.jpg

The permissions on the boot.ini file on the F: drive, may not make
it possible to check easily. On my system right now, I have two
boot drives, and if I go to open H:\boot.ini, I can do it. The
second disk is my Win2K disk. In this example, you can see the
partition with Win2K on it, is partition 1, as in the second
entry in the partition table. I would change the "1" to some
other value, if my partition table got screwed up.

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

Try a few things, and post back what you think may have caused it.

Or perhaps someone else knows how to solve this faster than I do
and they'll give a few suggestions :-)

HTH,
Paul

Phil wrote:
I put the hard drive in other computer. It is showing the new added drive. It
has "F" and "G". "G" is the HP recovery portion. Should I try to use G to
repair F ? If so and I click on G will it try to go to my original hard drive
(master) and mess up that 1?

thank you so much for the help so far. It is graetly appreciated.


Well, that is interesting, that everything seems to be there.

Are there any data files on your old C: (F: perhaps) drive that
you want to keep ? If you were to run the recovery function
at some point, I believe that removes the whole C: including
your data files. If there is anything important, you could put a
copy on the machine you're using for this test.

No, don't attempt to use the recovery partition, while it is
on the slave machine.

Some of those recovery partitions, use things like Ghost, or a
similar concept. So in fact, if you had the appropriate tools
and knowledge, you could rebuild a "factory" hard drive, using
your good working computer. But if you were expecting the
right thing to happen by "one-clicking" something, no,
I expect that isn't going to do what you want. Not while
the drive is slaved in your other computer.

*******

OK, so what we seem to have, is a hard drive that works in one computer,
but doesn't work in the other. Your original symptoms mentioned...

"long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll"

so if that was actually an attempt to boot from the C: drive of the
HP a324x, maybe that is the symptom to concentrate on.

I tried a search on

"file missing or corrupt hal.dll"

This is the first hit I got. It could be the boot.ini is not pointing
at the right partition. Or, it could be that the particular file is missing.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findby...singhaldll.htm

Knowing what you've been doing to the machine recently, might aid
is determining what to do. Read through that page, and see if
anything you've been doing recently, matches.

For example, I've had a boot.ini screwed up, when I was using some
partition management software. It wrote the four primary partition
entries into the partition table, in a different order than they were
originally (which is not a good thing to do). That caused boot.ini
to point to the wrong partition. I didn't get the hal.dll message
though. That was relatively easy to fix. I first got a picture
of the partition table ("fdisk" partition tool in Linux), then
used a text editor to correct the partition number in the
boot line in boot.ini. It booted right up after that.

Work through the page first, but don't get out the claw hammer
just yet and bang on things... At least some of the recovery
procedures will be taking a chance.

If the drive is placed back in the original computer, the jumpers
set to their original condition, are you able to run the
WD test floppy ? Is the computer able to access the drive, to
carry out that test ? I'd want some confidence now, that the
problem is purely what is written on the hard drive, and not
some external influence.

In any case, you're not going to be able to use the recovery
partition on that drive, unless something is working. And
at this point, I'm not recommending that. If, on the other hand,
you're in a hurry, and none of the data on the drive is worth
keeping, then you can always carry out your plan. You'll need
to look in your user manual for the computer, to find what
F key to press to start a recovery. If the recovery process
can't boot itself, in the same way that WinXP can't boot itself
(get an error message), then you'll know that some pre-requisite
health issue still exists.

So, to some extent, what you do next may depend on how much time
you've got to spend on it. I'm guessing at this point, that
it could be repaired, without "using the hammer". But if this
method of communication is too slow to get the job done, then
you can always carry out your plan.

Since F: and G: showed up on the other computer, that implies
there is nothing wrong with the partition table. It doesn't
guarantee that the entries are in the same order as they
used to be in. So it doesn't prove all aspects of what is
on the drive are correct.

While you've got F: and G: available to you, do a search
and see if you can find one or more copies of hal.dll.
According to my Device Manager, the first file here is the
one the system needs. I don't really think this file has gone missing.

C:\windows\system32\hal.dll
C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386\sp3.cab (copy inside the cab file)

To look at the partition table on the disk, you can use this tool,
selecting the hard drive from the menu. Unzip and run the executable.

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip

The size in sectors, at the end of each line, should give you some idea
how big the partition is. In the following example, the second partition entry
is 20971520 sectors, and multiplying by 512 bytes per sector, gives
10,737,418,240 bytes. So if I knew my C drive was 10.7GB, then I'd know
it was the second partition entry.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c5...TEditVista.jpg

The permissions on the boot.ini file on the F: drive, may not make
it possible to check easily. On my system right now, I have two
boot drives, and if I go to open H:\boot.ini, I can do it. The
second disk is my Win2K disk. In this example, you can see the
partition with Win2K on it, is partition 1, as in the second
entry in the partition table. I would change the "1" to some
other value, if my partition table got screwed up.

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

Try a few things, and post back what you think may have caused it.

Or perhaps someone else knows how to solve this faster than I do
and they'll give a few suggestions :-)

HTH,
Paul

on the drive it only has 1.3gb on it. used to be over 25gb. the recovery
partition has 4.68gb. I also tried to run the wd diag and it said can not
load DOS. I took the drive out and put it back in old machine and booted to
floppy and also said can not load DOS ???? Does this mean anything??

"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
I put the hard drive in other computer. It is showing the new added drive. It
has "F" and "G". "G" is the HP recovery portion. Should I try to use G to
repair F ? If so and I click on G will it try to go to my original hard drive
(master) and mess up that 1?

thank you so much for the help so far. It is graetly appreciated.


Well, that is interesting, that everything seems to be there.

Are there any data files on your old C: (F: perhaps) drive that
you want to keep ? If you were to run the recovery function
at some point, I believe that removes the whole C: including
your data files. If there is anything important, you could put a
copy on the machine you're using for this test.

No, don't attempt to use the recovery partition, while it is
on the slave machine.

Some of those recovery partitions, use things like Ghost, or a
similar concept. So in fact, if you had the appropriate tools
and knowledge, you could rebuild a "factory" hard drive, using
your good working computer. But if you were expecting the
right thing to happen by "one-clicking" something, no,
I expect that isn't going to do what you want. Not while
the drive is slaved in your other computer.

*******

OK, so what we seem to have, is a hard drive that works in one computer,
but doesn't work in the other. Your original symptoms mentioned...

"long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll"

so if that was actually an attempt to boot from the C: drive of the
HP a324x, maybe that is the symptom to concentrate on.

I tried a search on

"file missing or corrupt hal.dll"

This is the first hit I got. It could be the boot.ini is not pointing
at the right partition. Or, it could be that the particular file is missing.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findby...singhaldll.htm

Knowing what you've been doing to the machine recently, might aid
is determining what to do. Read through that page, and see if
anything you've been doing recently, matches.

For example, I've had a boot.ini screwed up, when I was using some
partition management software. It wrote the four primary partition
entries into the partition table, in a different order than they were
originally (which is not a good thing to do). That caused boot.ini
to point to the wrong partition. I didn't get the hal.dll message
though. That was relatively easy to fix. I first got a picture
of the partition table ("fdisk" partition tool in Linux), then
used a text editor to correct the partition number in the
boot line in boot.ini. It booted right up after that.

Work through the page first, but don't get out the claw hammer
just yet and bang on things... At least some of the recovery
procedures will be taking a chance.

If the drive is placed back in the original computer, the jumpers
set to their original condition, are you able to run the
WD test floppy ? Is the computer able to access the drive, to
carry out that test ? I'd want some confidence now, that the
problem is purely what is written on the hard drive, and not
some external influence.

In any case, you're not going to be able to use the recovery
partition on that drive, unless something is working. And
at this point, I'm not recommending that. If, on the other hand,
you're in a hurry, and none of the data on the drive is worth
keeping, then you can always carry out your plan. You'll need
to look in your user manual for the computer, to find what
F key to press to start a recovery. If the recovery process
can't boot itself, in the same way that WinXP can't boot itself
(get an error message), then you'll know that some pre-requisite
health issue still exists.

So, to some extent, what you do next may depend on how much time
you've got to spend on it. I'm guessing at this point, that
it could be repaired, without "using the hammer". But if this
method of communication is too slow to get the job done, then
you can always carry out your plan.

Since F: and G: showed up on the other computer, that implies
there is nothing wrong with the partition table. It doesn't
guarantee that the entries are in the same order as they
used to be in. So it doesn't prove all aspects of what is
on the drive are correct.

While you've got F: and G: available to you, do a search
and see if you can find one or more copies of hal.dll.
According to my Device Manager, the first file here is the
one the system needs. I don't really think this file has gone missing.

C:\windows\system32\hal.dll
C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386\sp3.cab (copy inside the cab file)

To look at the partition table on the disk, you can use this tool,
selecting the hard drive from the menu. Unzip and run the executable.

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip

The size in sectors, at the end of each line, should give you some idea
how big the partition is. In the following example, the second partition entry
is 20971520 sectors, and multiplying by 512 bytes per sector, gives
10,737,418,240 bytes. So if I knew my C drive was 10.7GB, then I'd know
it was the second partition entry.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c5...TEditVista.jpg

The permissions on the boot.ini file on the F: drive, may not make
it possible to check easily. On my system right now, I have two
boot drives, and if I go to open H:\boot.ini, I can do it. The
second disk is my Win2K disk. In this example, you can see the
partition with Win2K on it, is partition 1, as in the second
entry in the partition table. I would change the "1" to some
other value, if my partition table got screwed up.

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

Try a few things, and post back what you think may have caused it.

Or perhaps someone else knows how to solve this faster than I do
and they'll give a few suggestions :-)

HTH,
Paul

on the drive it only has 1.3gb on it. used to be over 25gb. the recovery
partition has 4.68gb. I also tried to run the wd diag and it said can not
load DOS. I took the drive out and put it back in old machine and booted to
floppy and also said can not load DOS ???? Does this mean anything??

"Paul" wrote:

Phil wrote:
I put the hard drive in other computer. It is showing the new added drive. It
has "F" and "G". "G" is the HP recovery portion. Should I try to use G to
repair F ? If so and I click on G will it try to go to my original hard drive
(master) and mess up that 1?

thank you so much for the help so far. It is graetly appreciated.


Well, that is interesting, that everything seems to be there.

Are there any data files on your old C: (F: perhaps) drive that
you want to keep ? If you were to run the recovery function
at some point, I believe that removes the whole C: including
your data files. If there is anything important, you could put a
copy on the machine you're using for this test.

No, don't attempt to use the recovery partition, while it is
on the slave machine.

Some of those recovery partitions, use things like Ghost, or a
similar concept. So in fact, if you had the appropriate tools
and knowledge, you could rebuild a "factory" hard drive, using
your good working computer. But if you were expecting the
right thing to happen by "one-clicking" something, no,
I expect that isn't going to do what you want. Not while
the drive is slaved in your other computer.

*******

OK, so what we seem to have, is a hard drive that works in one computer,
but doesn't work in the other. Your original symptoms mentioned...

"long pause then a message saying file missing or corrupt hal.dll"

so if that was actually an attempt to boot from the C: drive of the
HP a324x, maybe that is the symptom to concentrate on.

I tried a search on

"file missing or corrupt hal.dll"

This is the first hit I got. It could be the boot.ini is not pointing
at the right partition. Or, it could be that the particular file is missing.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findby...singhaldll.htm

Knowing what you've been doing to the machine recently, might aid
is determining what to do. Read through that page, and see if
anything you've been doing recently, matches.

For example, I've had a boot.ini screwed up, when I was using some
partition management software. It wrote the four primary partition
entries into the partition table, in a different order than they were
originally (which is not a good thing to do). That caused boot.ini
to point to the wrong partition. I didn't get the hal.dll message
though. That was relatively easy to fix. I first got a picture
of the partition table ("fdisk" partition tool in Linux), then
used a text editor to correct the partition number in the
boot line in boot.ini. It booted right up after that.

Work through the page first, but don't get out the claw hammer
just yet and bang on things... At least some of the recovery
procedures will be taking a chance.

If the drive is placed back in the original computer, the jumpers
set to their original condition, are you able to run the
WD test floppy ? Is the computer able to access the drive, to
carry out that test ? I'd want some confidence now, that the
problem is purely what is written on the hard drive, and not
some external influence.

In any case, you're not going to be able to use the recovery
partition on that drive, unless something is working. And
at this point, I'm not recommending that. If, on the other hand,
you're in a hurry, and none of the data on the drive is worth
keeping, then you can always carry out your plan. You'll need
to look in your user manual for the computer, to find what
F key to press to start a recovery. If the recovery process
can't boot itself, in the same way that WinXP can't boot itself
(get an error message), then you'll know that some pre-requisite
health issue still exists.

So, to some extent, what you do next may depend on how much time
you've got to spend on it. I'm guessing at this point, that
it could be repaired, without "using the hammer". But if this
method of communication is too slow to get the job done, then
you can always carry out your plan.

Since F: and G: showed up on the other computer, that implies
there is nothing wrong with the partition table. It doesn't
guarantee that the entries are in the same order as they
used to be in. So it doesn't prove all aspects of what is
on the drive are correct.

While you've got F: and G: available to you, do a search
and see if you can find one or more copies of hal.dll.
According to my Device Manager, the first file here is the
one the system needs. I don't really think this file has gone missing.

C:\windows\system32\hal.dll
C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386\sp3.cab (copy inside the cab file)

To look at the partition table on the disk, you can use this tool,
selecting the hard drive from the menu. Unzip and run the executable.

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip

The size in sectors, at the end of each line, should give you some idea
how big the partition is. In the following example, the second partition entry
is 20971520 sectors, and multiplying by 512 bytes per sector, gives
10,737,418,240 bytes. So if I knew my C drive was 10.7GB, then I'd know
it was the second partition entry.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c5...TEditVista.jpg

The permissions on the boot.ini file on the F: drive, may not make
it possible to check easily. On my system right now, I have two
boot drives, and if I go to open H:\boot.ini, I can do it. The
second disk is my Win2K disk. In this example, you can see the
partition with Win2K on it, is partition 1, as in the second
entry in the partition table. I would change the "1" to some
other value, if my partition table got screwed up.

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

Try a few things, and post back what you think may have caused it.

Or perhaps someone else knows how to solve this faster than I do
and they'll give a few suggestions :-)

HTH,
Paul