Big problems in Little Burbank

XP problem free until - (1st) Saved and Printed documents from Thumb Drive on a typically unused user account (appear to be virus free documents). (shutdown, startup) (2nd) Installed Canon scanner on the computer. (shutdown, startup) (3rd) Used scanner. (shutdown)

Now the computer wont startup XP because I encounter (approx):

"hal.dll missing, please replace file"

Using the repair function from the XP CD...

There is NO boot.ini file
There is NO result from bootcfg /list or bootcfg /scan
In fact a CHKDSK says (approx) "there may be problems with the drive"
And c: directory (C:\dir command) gives
..."error occurred during directory enumeration"


There are important files on the computer I would have backed up if I had the cash for another drive.

What should I do? Any suggestions or experience with this would be awesome. (Do I need to remove this drive and try and put it on another computer? If so, how do I do this? Is there another way? I cannot get to the C: directory!)

Goto the last post: http://www.gidforums.com/t-4103.html

It sounds like the Master boot Record could have been damaged.

There is a fix for this but it is a LAST resort as the data on your drive may become unreachable and mean a complete reinstall. I would suggest that you back up your data first by slaving your drive in a second system first and then put the drive back in the original system.

The MBr can then be fixed in the original system by using the command "FIXMBR" in the recovery console.

I have the same problem right now.

This happened after I had shut down my computer to evacuate Galveston for Rita. When I returned someone else had powered on the system, logged on to the main account and when they returned to the computer it was crashed. Supposedly nothing had been done to the system and I am running on that info.

I tried using chkdsk and was informed all seemed well. So I did the "/p" command to make it check anyways and it does have a problem with the drive now.

I did have the important info on this HDD backed up, but the tape is corrupt and not finishing the restore. I need to be able to save this HDD and the data on it.

I am currently reading through the link that "khey" posted and will see if anything turns up there, but I am under a serious time crunch because not only did the evacuation put me a week behind, but now I can't get started on any of our work that needs to be done last week.

Thanks in advance for any help at all. I will try and check this board very often with updates and such.

I have ran chkdsk with the "\r" command and now it checks out fine. So I try to expand D:...hal.dll c:...hal.dll (where the dots are the proper extension) and it tells me "access is denied". I try to use the "attrib" command and get the smae denial of access.

What steps should I take next to save this data?