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Resolved Question

Reformat hard drive

Dec 30, 2011 7:13AM PST

Thanks for the help on the issue I posted. I kept getting more issues to deal with .I have a T 5010 Emachine desk top running windows XP home edition. I did a repair to try and solve all the problems this did not help. So I Did a reformat and when it was to start windows up I got this error message <windows root>\system32\hal.dll. and windows will not start. I run Repair with the disc that came with it. It still comes up with the same error could you please help me with this. Thanks CWTX

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The other discussion
Dec 30, 2011 8:53PM PST

is here; http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6122_102-549759/problem-installing-verizon-mifi-created-problems/?messageId=5243239&tag=rb_content;contentBody#message5243239

About your reformat. How did you do that? We often see users who reformat a hard drive with some 3rd party bootable utility, then run into problems when they use the Windows CD to install Windows.

The proper way is to insert the Windows CD, restart the computer, then use that Windows CD to delete all partitions, then perform a format. Only then will Windows, (in this case XP), continue on to install correctly.

Other problems that can arise.

1] What is the size of this hard drive? If it is greater than 127GB then XP, (the one with no Service Packs, will limit the size of the drive to 127GB. XP's SP1 fixed that.

2] SATA drives. If your Desktop uses SATA hard drives then XP does not know what SATA is. XP needs SATA drivers installed, from a floppy disk or may be from a USB memory stick, during the XP setup procedure.

3] Other drivers, chipset, video, sound and network drivers, need to be available on a CD to be installed after XP setup has finished and Windows can load.

But first we need to know what your initial steps were.

Mark

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The other discusion -new
Dec 31, 2011 12:51AM PST

I used the disc that came with the computer when I purchased it. I down loaded IE8 this started a lot of issue and also down loaded windows player 11. After doing this I had automatic updated issues it would not work and in media player it would not play movies and lost all purchased music. I went to micro soft and down loaded fix it program it said I had problems but was unable to fix them it sent me to articles in microsoft to fix the problems and two articles said to roll back IE8 to IE7 and media player from version 11 back to version 10 and send me to the articles on how to do this and I followed the the article and done this. This created more issues I was running IE7 but it said I was actually running part of IE8 and windows media 10 did not install codec to play movies.Now I had more issues with other programs.I run fix it and it said I had a lot of issues and to run from the disc that came with the computer R for repair so I did this it did not fix any problems.It sent me to another article that said to run R repair again and if this did
not fix the problems to reformat hard drive as windows Xp home edition takes a picture of the last working system and tries to repair it that I needed to reformat and start over so I did this after the re format I got the error and windows will not open this is where I am at . Any Help would be appreciated. Thanks CWTX

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The other discusion -new
Dec 31, 2011 1:01AM PST

The disc I am using is E-Machine Microsoft windows XP home edition System Recovery CD/DVD. I thought this might be helpful. I am new to forums please excuse any mistakes I am making about posting Thanks CWTX

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Until the details about the machine are known
Dec 31, 2011 1:08AM PST

It will continue to look like one of the usual problems with XP. The preformatted drive, the 127GB issue and so on.

Your posts are incomplete and don't give up the details to remove those concerns.
Bob

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The other discusion
Jan 1, 2012 3:07AM PST

I have resolved my problem. I found the disc that came with my first computer called operating system re installation CD Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition. I put this disc in and it run like it was supposed to as per instructions and I was able to install the Recovery Console which I could not do with Emachine CD. From the console I was able to find my problem it was FIX MBR I done the repair and it is working now. Thanks for your Help.Microsoft Article 945380 describes the problem I was having but I did
not have a command prompt or Recovery Console by finding the the older disc of XP I was able to install Control Console which was not on the EMachine CD. I hope this helps some one else down the road and again my apology for not getting all the facts to you. Thank you so much for the help.CWTX

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Good work
Jan 1, 2012 6:01AM PST

and I'm glad you got it sorted.

Mark