Dear Gods Help This Idiot!

[myskaal]

So I'm about at my wits end and a complete reformat is looking inevitable. I'm still thrashing about helplessly trying not to lose everything on my computer and trying some last ditch efforts.

Quick background: When attempting to remove secuROM, Windows decided to throw up and either corrupt or lose HAL.dll. Since that moment I have been trying recovery/rebuild option after option with very little success.
I have gotten to a point where Windows will start, but logs me off immediately after log on. Windows starts, shows my log on, I log on, I see my desktop background, windows logs off.

So I am now going to try installing a 2nd OS to at least be able to grab some of my most important files before ressting the whole damn thing and starting fresh.

However, there's a small glitch I created when following these instructions that I can not seem to find a solution to - thta I would like to solve before continuing on to a 2nd install.
By using the rebuild I now get a menu just after reboot for "which" windows XP I want to run. I really should only have one but apparently following the above instructions creates a new one.

So I get a boot menu that looks something like the one down about mid-page at this link: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000492.htm

Unfortunately.. I can not get windows to start through any means of noral or safemode. So I can't use the DOS command line instructions found there. The recovery disk instructions they have linked there do not explain how to modify the boot.ini from the Recovery tool.

I'm so extremly brain fried at this point I doubt any of what I am typing makes any sense but the gist of it is HELP!


edit: trying to clarify a bit, what I am trying to do is delete id1 and id2 in bootcfg. Unfortunately, in the Recovery Console there is no /delete command and rebuild creates yet another id to choose from when rebooting.

So, from the windows command prompt I would type in: bootcfg /delete /id1 and then rinse and repeat for 2 but I can't get to the normal windows command prompt (because windows will not let me log on) and I can not find any way to do this from the Recovery Console.


So.. should I just not worry about this step and install the 2nd OS? Or is that a waste of time because without fixing whatever is causing me to not be able to log on right now will continue to prevent me from logging on with a 2nd OS installed?

Any ideas?

[Ambular]

Shot in the dark, but you haven't, by any chance, installed XP SP3 very recently?

[myskaal]

Answered this in the Securom post, too, but honestly I can't say that I haven't. There was a recently installed update to windows which installed on it's own and rebooted my comp for me while I was at work. I'm wanting to say that was a week or more ago but I could be way off on my time line. I don't generally double check those things.

I have not manually and/or purposefully installed SP3.

Without being able to log on, I'm not sure how I would go about finding out if it was installed.

[Kazzandra]

YOU HAVE. Poor you. I had recovery disks, thank goodness, that I had made sometime around when I first configured my computer. I lost nothing on my hard drive, but my user account was fried, so I had to make a new account. Considering that just yesterday Microsoft reminded me to download SP3, you probably had this happen, too, and if you had automatic downloads on, Microsoft killed your computer.

Links: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,12098.msg341380.html#msg341380
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,11859.msg335084.html#msg335084

I'll look into finding you some help on this topic. Installing a second OS should remedy your problems. I'll post back after some research. You should get a boot menu, btw. Use the new install.

ETA: It seems you could set the hard drive as a slave in another computer and copypaste your userdata and then format.
Or load up a whole different OS. Ubuntu or some other free OS.

Here's the best info I could find. Your results may vary.

As for hal.dll, here are the steps to recover from the mistakes..
Boot from your WinXP CD and follow the directions to start Recovery Console.
Then type these commands :

Attrib -H -R -S C:\Boot.ini
DEL C:\Boot.ini
BootCfg /Rebuild
Fixboot

The alternative way is to boot from your CD and follow the directions below to start Recovery Console.

Insert the Setup compact disc (CD) and restart the computer. If prompted, select any options required to boot from the CD.
When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts; choose the repair or recover option by pressing R.

If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot system, choose the installation that you need to access from the Recovery Console.
When prompted, type the Administrator password. (if you didn't create one try pressing enter).

At the system prompt, type Recovery Console commands; type help for a list of commands, or help commandname for help on a specific command.

Most likely you will need to expand the file from the CD. The command would be expand d:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll. Substitute d: for the drive letter of your CD. Once you have expanded the file type "exit" to exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer.


You can refer to some screenshots of the recovery console here
http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm

 

Do you have an HP box or an AMD processor? Seems to be the root cause.

[myskaal]

I knew I should have bought a MAC.

*Thanks for the links. I'll definately be turning auto updates off this time around.
I'm going through the 2nd install now. Hopefully it will, at the very least, allow me to grab the files that have sent me into panic attack about losing. I'll be backing up a shitload more often from here on out. I definately don't mind reformatting(the comp needs it, for sure). I'm going to freak without thoe files, though.

HPBOX ... eruummm. No? And no AMD.

HP as is Hewlit Packard?

I have (like Simsbaby) a Dell. Although it's a desktop not a laptop.

Those steps you quoted above are what got me to the point where windows would load but would log me off again immediately after log on. The rebuild is what gave me the multiple OS menu after reboot.

[Ambular]

According to our friendly neighborhood cybergeek, some SP3 users running specific Dell and (I think?) HP systems have got locked into a continuous-restart loop like that and there's no cure for it but to salvage whatever data by whatever means you can, then wipe the drive and reinstall everything.

* AmberDiceless pats myskaal sympathetically.

One more reason to buy local custom-built rigs...

[myskaal]

Of course.

Yes, indeed, the next system I get will *not* be factory shipped but built. Pre-made and ready to ship is just too much of a nightmare - especially with all the crap Dell likes to put on their systems before it gets to you. The first 3 month after I got this rig was spent just trying to clean all the crap that has no use off. I never did get rid of all of it.

Oh yay we're at appliaction installation. 30 more minutes to go.

I appreciate the support

**Update: All done and thankyou for the help. I can get to my files. I'm blind , now, mind you (I forgot what a fresh install with an unconfigured displaylooks like) but I can get my goods and nuke the uglies.

I think I'll actually head out and grab a non-dell-dirtied OS disk before doing the reformat.

[jolrei]

Yeah, that popped up on my rig as well.  I had it set to download, but not auto-install.  I saw the prompt and told it to cancel the install since I'd heard this about SP3.  I have a custom rig that I built myself, and I'm not ready to risk it.  I am following the "not broke, don't fix" philosophy now.

[momoryde]

Do you already have all your files in a safe backup somewhere, and a real (ie, not a recovery disk) copy of Windows you're installing from? If you do, just go ahead and nuke all the partitions, and then partition to taste. I'm not sure whether you're on a laptop or not, but that looks vaguely like the weird-ass partition schemes certain Windows laptops makers like Dell would sometimes use to set up suspend-to-disk partitions.

[J. M. Pescado]

Never auto-update Windoze. If it ain't broke, DON'T FIX IT.

[Solowren]

This makes me very scared. I'm not at home right now. What if my stupid computer downloads and installs SP3 while I'm gone? Or has it already been distributed, and I'm safe?

Should I go home right how and turn off automatic updates?

[Madame Mim]

I have Windows patch 3. I didn't know all of this and I very deliberately put it into my machine. My boot up is fine. I also don't own a Deliberately Engineered Leguminous Lump - is it all pre-made machines? Mine is custom. Or only Dell premade machines - which I already knew were phail.

[J. M. Pescado]

This makes me very scared. I'm not at home right now. What if my stupid computer downloads and installs SP3 while I'm gone? Or has it already been distributed, and I'm safe?

It's been out for awhile, so you're already infected. If your computer hasn't failed yet, you're fine. SP3 isn't so much inherently BAD as it is simply unnecessary and risky. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. When you tamper with the machine, even when the end result is supposed to be good, there's a chance that it will instead break. If the machine WORKS, why take the risk, especially if you have no idea how to resolve the consequences?

[myskaal]

If you're fine you're fine. I was fine until yesterday when I got the gumption to finally remove secuROM. Going through that process was apparently the cliff to leap off for my OS. It had been building up with little glitches here and there and that was the final straw for it, I guess.


So, back to me needing some help here... again. I've finished the reformat/reinstall (actually on the machine that went wonk now) and I've run into a problem regarding my video card. I replaced the card the that came in the machine with one of my own choosing. I just downloaded the driver for that card. The install wizard is telling me I do not have the hardware that matches the driver. In fact I do.. I know I do. I put the damn thing in and have had it running just fine and dandy for not quite a year now.

Opening up device manager reveals that the only graphics/video I apparently have are listed under "Other". There is no Display Adapter listed after Disk Drives, as there was prior to reformatting. Everything under this Other has the ! on it. Ethernet controller, PCI device, PCI Simple Communications Controller, SM Bus Controller, and -> Video Controller <-

So for some reason the card is not being found or recognized.

I tried checking in Setup (F2 .. bios I believe that is) to see if there was a setting I needed to change but I could find nothing. Video there is set to use the PCI Express slot, which is where the card is.

I'll continue searching for the solution but if anyone has clues or knows what this is about, I'd appreciate the education.

ETU: Solved. The drivers had to actually be installed from the disk that came with the video card - not with the most recent available off the Nvidia site.

Uninstalling and rebooting forced the plug and play installation on the other unknown devices. Now I am down to only one unknown PCI device. The windows auto-install could not locate a driver for it.

Almost there!



NO MOAR SP3!

[Kazzandra]

This makes me very scared. I'm not at home right now. What if my stupid computer downloads and installs SP3 while I'm gone? Or has it already been distributed, and I'm safe?

Should I go home right how and turn off automatic updates?

Always turn off automatic updates.

I have Windows patch 3. I didn't know all of this and I very deliberately put it into my machine. My boot up is fine. I also don't own a Deliberately Engineered Leguminous Lump - is it all pre-made machines? Mine is custom. Or only Dell premade machines - which I already knew were phail.

Nope, it seems it is a widespread phenomenon. My custom rig was affected, not my box. Every time I think I see a cause, someone else ruins it with an exception. I thought it was AMD processors, but, nope.