Dear Chanced-upon-this reader,
I am no computer expert and all the information I have is through the experiences one gets through the need to install cracked softwares and the bits and pieces of information one picks up as one finds one's way through this digital rainforest...whatever.
Recently I just hit upon this idea that I should have Linux (ok ok GNU/Linux) installed on my computer...so I burned 4 cds of the Fedora Core 4 installation and started with great spirits. Mind this was around Christmas in 2006 and this particular version had gotten quite obsolete...anyway I went ahead with the installation. Well, the installation never started...I always got the message "disabling irq #10" and then the system would just freeze. So, I turned to a couple of geeks and dear old Google for help. From what I picked up (I am not too sure of this though) this particular version is unable to detect a SATA hard disk. What I could do was to get a newer kernel 2.6.15 or something like that and replace the old one (now already on the cd), probably 2.6.11 with this and follow that up with a host of other geek like things...and I chose not to do that...Meanwhile the geeks (my friends basically and fully aware of my half-baked knowledge of these things) suggested that I try out Ubuntu, a very popular flavour of GNU/Linux.
And thus, I downloaded the iso image of Ubuntu (thanks only one cd image) and burnt it. Well, I started the installation, followed the instructions...pretty straightforward...and bingo! installation complete...wow!!! No problem with hard disk detection or anything! Is it over then?
Nooooooooo! You see I need Windows XP, with all due respect to Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and the countless volunteers who have and continue to work tirelessly to make Linux better and stronger.
So I wanted to start xp. And then I see the message windows cannot start because of a corrupt file hal.dll in the system32 folder. I was clueless as to what had happened...so I reinstalled Windows XP. Over? NO!!! This time at booting time I see I cannot get into Ubuntu...So I go back to Google and dig up this information... having a corrupt hal.dll is a standard trouble (by standard I mean something that is even documented by Microsoft). And the standard way to get over this is :
Steps outlined:
1. Boot from the Windows XP cd.
2. Get into recovery mode by pressing 'r' when the option comes.
3. When recovery mode starts, you will be asked which windows to recover...and at the prompt you will need to type in the corresponding no. It will likely be 1 because most of us have only one windows installed.
4. If you have an administrator password type it when asked to do so. If you don't have any password just press enter.
5. When the command prompt comes, type this : Bootcfg/Rebuild
6. Then type: Microsoft Windows XP Professional.
7. Then type: /Fastdetect
8. Finally type: Fixboot
Hopefully it has been fixed!
Back to my story...I installed Linux for the last time... Ok this is Ubuntu again...so you must be thinking that xp's hal.dll might have been corrupted again and I had to go through the steps I have outlined above to fix it? Well if you thought that you are with me... because I thought that too...but it didn't happen. This time hal.dll didn't get corrupt....and it still remains a mystery to me...I didn't mind it of course.
Hey Presto!
15 years ago