Computer Death - Help?

[Hope Leaves]

Hey, booted up my computer this morning to check emails and whatnot, after a while I hear a clicking and revving sound from the hard-drive, like when you boot the computer up. At this point the computer hadn't crashed but I figured this was not a good noise so turned it off. Have come back to it and it no longer boots, giving the error that the following file is corrupt or missing;

<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.

The majority of stuff I had on this drive that I want is backed up, however I have been lazy and not backed anything up for a couple of months. It wont be the end of the world if I cant get it back but I was wondering if anyone could help let me know if there's a way to either fix the drive - or at least recover some of the data off it.

Cheers,
Chris.

[garww]

Do it all the time !!

But, this is one you need to research on the web. Do you have a system CD to restore Windows ?? It's only happened(hal.dll) to me once or twice in the distant past.

[edub357]

does it boot in safe mode? maybe you can recover some of you data from there? im in the process of getting my data off of my old hard drive as well.

[garww]

Ya, chances are the drive is fine.

[Hope Leaves]

cheers guys, since posting this thread I have treid to reinstall the missing dll from the windows cd but it is not recognising the hdd as bein there anymore so I can scan it or anything, I think it's a lost cause tbh. oh well.

[garww]

See if you have a geek friend. He/she/it should be able bring it back. Like I said, this one requires some understanding. I've been using the same windows registry for at least 10 years and it has been through many non-bootable situations.

[uiane]

man, ur HD is fine, the hal get lost sometimes in XP. use a windows CD to recover it.
search google for "HAL.dll boot problem" "hal.dll recover"
just don't try to re-install or something like that, because that will make u loose ur files!

[uiane]

here's one resolution:
Resolution

1. Restart the PC. The hal.dll error could be a fluke.

2. Check for proper boot order in BIOS. You might see the hal.dll error if the boot order in BIOS is first looking at a hard drive other than your main hard drive.

Note: If you've recently changed your boot order or recently flashed your BIOS, this may be what's causing your problem.

3. Run Windows XP System Restore from a command prompt. If this doesn't work or you're receiving the hal.dll error message before you're able to complete this process, move on to the next step.

4. Repair or replace the boot.ini file. This will work if the cause of the problem is actually Windows XP's boot.ini file and not the hal.dll file, which is often times the case.

Note: If repairing the boot.ini does correct the hal.dll issue but the problem reappears after a reboot and you've recently installed Internet Explorer 8 in Windows XP, uninstall IE8. In this specific situation, IE8 could be the root cause of your hal.dll problem.

5. Write a new partition boot sector to the Windows XP system partition. If the partition boot sector has become corrupt or isn't properly configured, you may receive the hal.dll error.

6. Recover data from any bad sectors on your hard drive. If the physical part of your hard drive that stores any part of the hal.dll file has been damaged, you're likely to see errors like this.

7. Restore the hal.dll file from the Windows XP CD. If the hal.dll file is truly the cause of the problem, restoring it from the original Windows XP CD may do the trick.

8. Perform a repair installation of Windows XP. This type of installation should replace any missing or corrupt files. Continue troubleshooting if this does not resolve the issue.

9. Perform a clean installation of Windows XP. This type of installation will completely remove Windows XP from your PC and install it again from scratch.

Note: While this will almost certainly resolve any hal.dll errors, it is a time consuming process due to the fact that all of your data must be backed up and then later restored.

Important: If you can't gain access to your files to back them up, you should understand that you will lose them all if you continue with a clean installation of Windows XP.

10. Test the hard drive. If all else has failed, including the clean installation from the last step, you're most likely facing a hardware issue with your hard drive but you'll want to test it to be sure.

If the drive fails any of your tests, replace the hard drive and then complete a "new" installation of Windows XP.

[uiane]

can we put links here?

[newkid]

Originally Posted by Hope Leaves

Hey, booted up my computer this morning to check emails and whatnot, after a while I hear a clicking and revving sound from the hard-drive, like when you boot the computer up. At this point the computer hadn't crashed but I figured this was not a good noise so turned it off. Have come back to it and it no longer boots, giving the error that the following file is corrupt or missing;

<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.

The majority of stuff I had on this drive that I want is backed up, however I have been lazy and not backed anything up for a couple of months. It wont be the end of the world if I cant get it back but I was wondering if anyone could help let me know if there's a way to either fix the drive - or at least recover some of the data off it.

Cheers,
Chris.

The clicking noise means the drive is dead.
You could pay a bunch and, maybe , get the data from the drive, but no guarantees they can recover it.

Only a tech can tell you for sure. 1 chance in squat that it is the controller ,but when mine clicked they said the drive was gone and to forget it.

Always back up daily! At least anything you care about.