I have used this method by
Sovereign myself a couple of times when I have had a case similar to yours, when the format was NOT a option.
Follow these steps.
1.
Boot from the CD and start the installer2. Choose to install onto the already formatted partition with the unbootable Windows, but opt to leave the existing filesystem and any other OSes alone. Choosing this will require you to create another folder for Windows to avoid writing over the existing installation (that it somehow sees now but not when the Repair "
Scanning for previous installations of Windows" is run, argh!) I usually call the new folder "
WINXP."
3. Install Windows as you would normally, you'll need a Product Key but you can actually use your personal key on someone else's computer with no danger to you losing it or being accused of piracy, I'll explain this later.
4. Boot the NEW Windows XP install.
Do not "Activate" or "register," you're going to be deleting this copy of Windows from the machine if all goes well.
5.
Edit the
BOOT.INI on the hard drive from the
original installation of Windows with the corrupted HAL if you messed it up like I did and had four OS entries in it, none of which worked. This usually happens when you try to use the method outlined in the InformationWeek article repeatedly and it does not work.
6. Go to
C:\WINXP\system32\hal.dll (where "WINXP" is the folder you installed the second copy of Windows XP) and
copy it from the new Windows to
C:\WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll (or wherever you installed Windows XP originally, I use "WINDOWS" but some people use strange folder names for their XP) and
overwrite any file there. The new hal.dll is uncorrupt and newly regenerated. The file is specific to each machine's hardware configuration and we needed to rebuild it. The installer did that for us with the new installation.
7. Try rebooting your computer to see if you can get into your OLD Windows installation. If you can, congratulations!
8.
DELETE the "
WINXP" folder (or wherever you put your new Windows install).
But it didn't work! I still can't boot! What should I do?
Did you choose the right OS to boot from (chances are if you didn't edit BOOT.INI you still have a pointer from your install of Windows that you used to regenerate hal.dll and then deleted once you thought you were finished. Try a different OS choice and if it boots, go to the System control panel, Advanced, Startup and Recovery, click the "Edit" button so you can mess around with BOOT.INI.
Sample BOOT.INI for XP Pro
NOEXECUTE is for Data Execution Protection, and this setting means only core Windows apps will be DEPped.
