Magnets & Laptops don't mix - Corrupt/Missing Hal.dll

[Jackofalltrades]

Please help, I've tried everything I can think of and I'm gettting nowhere.

A magnet was placed on a laptop, the laptop presented the blue screen of death, or so I am told by the owner of teh laptop. On restarting I get a message "Corrupt.Missing hal.dll file".

The Laptop is running XP home edition. I have a Windows ME Boot disk with fdisk on, so used the command prompt option. I attempted to look for the missing file in the hard drive c:\ but it displays an error stating that c:\ is not a valid drive.

I tried fdisk but the only drive it recognises is the a:\ drive ( floppy).

So, I try restarting and checking the BIOS. The hard drive is still being recognised in BIOS.

I downloaded the Windows Xp home edition floppy Boot disk. Inserted the first disk and booted from floppy. Windows setup ran and asked for the 2nd disk. I inserted the 2nd disk as directed and shortly after it displayed "operating system error number 7".

I repeated the process only to be faced with the same problem

Any suggestions on what I can try next?

Jack

[dcc]

You will more than likely need to reinstall the OS. The information on the hdd is "writen" to it magnetically, by placing the magnet on the laptop may have damaged the content of the hdd.

[jbennet]

your me (dos) bootdisk cant read the XP partition as that is NTFS not FAT32

you need to reinstall xp

[Jackofalltrades]

the laptop did not come with an Xp installation cd, so I downloaded the microsoft floppy disk instalation, i hoped this was the same as using a cd. But I get the "operating system error number7" everytime it runs Xp setup.

Is there a way to run fdisk or similar in a version of dos that will recogise the partition?

[jbennet]

you cannot install from a floppy disk

the floppy disks are what you use to load drivers for obscure cd drives which you then use to install xp

if you did not have an xp cd then it means it was on a hidden partition on your hard disk, and was most likely killed by the magnet. You will mist likely have to go out and buy a full retail version of xp (this will cost hundreds of dollars)

[Jackofalltrades]

Thanks for your help. As a new member I wasn't sure if i'd get a reply and have been pleasantly surprised, so thank you.

I live in hope that some of that data remains on the hard disk and that there is a way to view or retrieve it by connecting it up to my desktop with a trusty USB cable and a whole lot of luck.

[ragingbull1955]

since you will reinstall XP, you would be much better with pro instead of home

[caperjack]

winme or win98s' bootdisk will recognize the ntfs.when you type in fdisk ,it will open and you chose 4 to view non dos partition ,you can even delete the partition and create a dos partition if you want to loose all data on disk,i know you don't want to do this though .if you download the xp floppys this will give you the option of using the xp recovery consol to replace the missing file ,i personally think your hdd is dead ,even though it shows in the bios.

missing hal.dll
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000490.htm

http://shanegfowler.wordpress.com/2007/01/10/missing-haldll-error-corrupt-bootini-file-quick-fix/

[dcc]

winme or win98s' bootdisk will recognize the ntfs.when you type in fdisk ,it will open and you chose 4 to view non dos partition ,you can even delete the partition and create a dos partition if you want to loose all data on disk,i know you don't want to do this though .if you download the xp floppys this will give you the option of using the xp recovery consol to replace the missing file ,i personally think your hdd is dead ,even though it shows in the bios.

missing hal.dll
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000490.htm

http://shanegfowler.wordpress.com/2007/01/10/missing-haldll-error-corrupt-bootini-file-quick-fix/

The flux field of the speaker shouldn't have effected anything physically on the drive, just the information magnetically loaded. If you wipe the drive you should be able to format, partition it, and install your OS. The NSA has been able to retrieve information that has been corrupted by magnets, in fact they suggest that the only sure way to render the hdd useless it to use a torch on it. I suspect a good ole sawzall would be just as effective.