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astrial

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Dec 20, 2011
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I recently tried doing a clean install of windows xp on my desktop computer.

I used wintoflash to install windows xp from a usb. Everything went fine until i tried booting my computer.

It came up with a missing hall.dll file.

however,if i boot from my usb and select the "multi<0>disk<0>partition<2>\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 2"

option, it boots windows xp just fine. BUT the usb i installed windows xp is labeled as the c:\ drive and my local disk is labeled as J:\ i have to boot from my usb and select the "multi<0>disk<0>partition<2>\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 2" option my computer to boot up. Is there any fix to this?


thanks in advance

EDIT: it also seems that my boot.ini file is on my windows xp usb drive (C:\boot.ini) ; just thought that could be some useful info.

 
Solution
Sounds like you've got an invalid Boot.ini file... How you wound up with a partition "J" I have no idea since you seem to have a really confusing setup. So what you need to do is completely erase the Boot.ini file and edit it according to the text included below. You first need to check the Disk Management to see which partition the System installed on. So go and right click on the My Computer icon, and select Manage \ click on Disk management \ and check which partition the System is installed on... the System partition should say "Healthy (System)" and when you right click on that partition the Make Partition Active option should be grayed out (meaning it's already active)..

So, if the System is on the second partition, the third...
Sounds like you've got an invalid Boot.ini file... How you wound up with a partition "J" I have no idea since you seem to have a really confusing setup. So what you need to do is completely erase the Boot.ini file and edit it according to the text included below. You first need to check the Disk Management to see which partition the System installed on. So go and right click on the My Computer icon, and select Manage \ click on Disk management \ and check which partition the System is installed on... the System partition should say "Healthy (System)" and when you right click on that partition the Make Partition Active option should be grayed out (meaning it's already active)..

So, if the System is on the second partition, the third line in the boot.ini file should say:
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

To edit the Boot.ini file, Go to Control Panel\System\Advanced\Start and Recovery\Configuration\Edit... and the Boot.ini file will open for edition.

Next backup the file, and next completely erase the text in the file, replacing it with the text here below the dotted line. You only need one line but Copy the whole text because I don't really know which partition number your system is installed on since you mentioned Partition J and that would make it 8 partitions.

So copy the whole text so you have 8 boot options to boot from in case the computer doesn't boot right up. Then when it boots up, you can access the Boot.ini file and delete the useless lines.

.................................................................................................................

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(5)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(6)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(7)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(8)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
 
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