HAL.DLL Destroyed Me!

hotdog

hotdog

hotdog

Associate
Joined
1 Aug 2006
Posts
273
Anyone ever encountered this error, started the pc up and this error occured. I understand its a harddrive error - im looking for some help/advice though...

I have 2x 320 seagates in raid and an old diamondmax 250 ide. the ide drive i cant delete as its got pictures which i dont want to lose... I am looking for help - can i recover the data on the raid drives? Is it best to buy another cheap hard disk then try and re install windows then reconnect the raid?

ive done a google search and there is loads of info but little in explanation or help

Im pulling my hair out, no pc and no easy way out.... :confused:
 
Personally, I'd buy the world's cheapest harddrive, big enough to take the OS. Install OS onto the harddrive, and try to recover your RAID somehow - I don't use RAID, so can't help you in that region.
 
HAL stands for Hardware Abstraction Layer, it's thus got to do with all hardware, not just your Hard Drive(s).

Having another large drive to image/clone/recover on will be very useful. Does your BIOS still pick up the array normally? I'm guessing it does. In that case, you should be able to simply install onto another indepedent disk, and then view/copy data from the array afterwards as normal. You could even try to repair HAL.DLL, if that's indeed the only problem, from the new install, and then try booting the array again. (I'd be somewhat doubtful that would be the only problem, but you might be lucky. What precipitated this problem?)
 
Linux Knoppix - download and burn it on someone else's PC if you have access. They boot up from the DVD and see if it will recognise your RAID array. Or trying a repair installation of Windows. I hope your stuff was backed up though!
 
Robbie G said:
Linux Knoppix - download and burn it on someone else's PC if you have access. They boot up from the DVD and see if it will recognise your RAID array. Or trying a repair installation of Windows. I hope your stuff was backed up though!
Click to expand...

Should be able to recognize the array and hopefully allow you to back it up :)
 
My backup drive is now full ! Doh 250gig seemed like so much back in the day.... But then so did 40gig and prior to that 850meg !!!!!

Anyway the mobo picked up the raid so i have taken a chance and splashed out on the new seagate with 32meg cache - i hope i can just fresh install and then carry on.

What precipated the problem, no idea. Turn pc on then off, turn on and nothing

Thanks for the support guys :cool:
 
i cannot just simply install as i have valuable items on both hard drives that i dont want to delete.....

i have ordered a new 500giger , i will let you know how i get on. Another £90 for no reason :(
 
I am assuming you have a legal XP OS with a legal XP CD to hand.....

You should be able to do a repair install of XP. Put the XP CD in, boot the machine with it, head into the option to Install XP.

DO NOT FORMAT THE HARD DISK!! This would delete your files. So do not choose format. :)

When you go through the steps of the install, just after the licence agreement, the XP CD will look for the old XP Install. If it finds it, it will offer you an option to repair it.

This will probally fix your hassles. AND KEEP ALL YOU FILES AND PROGRAMS INTACT (it only overwrites the windows folder..). You just need to do lots of windows updates again afterwards. :)

=+=+=+

Alternate options.... Installing XP on a spare hard disk should let you at the RAID array to inspect it.

+=+=+=+

I had a hal.dll error way back in the pre SP1 days when the "free disk space" routine managed to compress hall.dll!! Stupid!! Had to use Recovery Console to boot in and swap the file.

=+=+=+

I have also see hal.dll errors from a corrupted registry. If you are brave, boot into the recovery console. Dig around in System Restore folder and copy out a previous registry and overwrite current one. (I can supply instructions if needed)
 
sadly i cant get as far as loading the recovery console... the bios screen accepts the cdrom (press any key to boot from cd etc) then BAMMN hal.dll error and i can get no further!!!!

So im buying another new disk for fresh install, keeping my 320gig raid for games and the 250gig ide for double backup and crap :o

never thought id see the day when my pc held 4 hard drives ... We should have evolved way past this by now

roll on solid state :rolleyes:
 
hotdog said:
sadly i cant get as far as loading the recovery console... the bios screen accepts the cdrom (press any key to boot from cd etc) then BAMMN hal.dll error and i can get no further!!!!
Click to expand...
That's weird... I been doing this job a good few years now... never seen that one.
hotdog said:
So im buying another new disk for fresh install, keeping my 320gig raid for games and the 250gig ide for double backup and crap :o

never thought id see the day when my pc held 4 hard drives ... We should have evolved way past this by now

roll on solid state :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Just sounds like sods law has just given you a kicking. Make sure you have a good quality PSU and plenty of cooling for those drives.. :)

And Solid State will fail in a far more dramatic fashion... as I have already seen with numerous customer flash drives. When they are dead - they are truely dead!!!
 
hotdog said:
sadly i cant get as far as loading the recovery console... the bios screen accepts the cdrom (press any key to boot from cd etc) then BAMMN hal.dll error and i can get no further!!!!
Click to expand...

That's odd. The only thing remotely similar I've seen before is certain types of filesystem corruption causing BSOD crashes (but then typically in NTFS.SYS, not HAL.DLL). The only way to deal with that is to use an alternate operating system/recovery tool that does not underlying also use NTFS.SYS (or in your case HAL.DLL.) So, I'd suggest trying something like the Knoppix liveCD/DVD or a dedicated rescue and recovery livecd like "Trinity Rescue Kit"
 
ByteJuggler said:
That's odd. The only thing remotely similar I've seen before is certain types of filesystem corruption causing BSOD crashes (but then typically in NTFS.SYS, not HAL.DLL). The only way to deal with that is to use an alternate operating system/recovery tool that does not underlying also use NTFS.SYS (or in your case HAL.DLL.) So, I'd suggest trying something like the Knoppix liveCD/DVD or a dedicated rescue and recovery livecd like "Trinity Rescue Kit"
Click to expand...

I used to run RAID and this type of stuff is a nightmare. After numerous HAL.dll and NTFS.sys errors the most efficient solution for me was to use a boot disk (like Hiren's but not Hiren's cos its illegal and we can't been seen to be promoting illegal software :eek:;)) and use some of the powerful manufacturer disk error checking. Almost without fail an error would be found and fixed and the machine would boot perfectly normally after an automatic chkdsk run. Check each drive separately and cross your fingers.

Could i suggest in future you keep nothing valuable on the C drive, that way you can safely format c drive and keep all pictures, email etc safe on D, E etc. I have moved My Docs and email storage to D drive (and backed-up across network :p) so everything operates "as normal" but the data is away from flaky windows files like HAL.dll and NTFS.sys
 
Well ive been dabbling in pc's since way back in the days of my spectrum +3 (yeah thats right! mega high spec!!!)

All i can say is that my psu is a seasonic s12, my case is a lian s80b and i have plenty of fans!!! Anyway i simply cant boot into the windoze setup screen, having tried different options for boot drives in the bios etc etc . Its simply a no go.

HDD should turn up Tuesday - so ill let you know... :(
 
Talrinys said:
Why will Solid State crash, the benefits of that technology are too many to count?
Click to expand...
Have you not yet had a flash drive die on you? Especially one formatted with FAT\FAT32? I have had a number of student clients who lost "only copies" of work because they stored them on cheap flash drives.

Yep - far less to go wrong that a complex hard disk with all them moving parts. And I am looking forward to them. But I still wouldn't trust my only copy of an important file to it. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom