XP Hard Disk problem

[D-wade]

My son received this message on his old Windows XP system (appx 4 yrs old),
"<windows root>\system32\hal.dll not found, please install this file." Not
sure if the hard disk crashed, we put in the OS reinstallation CD.

We turned the PC on, there were 2 quick beeps and a message: "drive not
found Serial ATA, SATA-1...Press F2 to continue". Pressed F2 and a blue
screen appeared and it said Windows Setup. At the bottom, it said "loading
files". For the next 2-3 minutes, a number of files were being loaded (I'm
assuming from the CD?). Once that finished, it said Setup is starting
Windows; then Welcome to Setup, then it said Windows did not find the hard
drive, press F3 to exit. We're at a loss as to what happened and how to fix
it.....tks D-wade.

 

[Mark Adams]

"D-wade" wrote:
<span style="color:blue">
> My son received this message on his old Windows XP system (appx 4 yrs old),
> "<windows root>system32hal.dll not found, please install this file." Not
> sure if the hard disk crashed, we put in the OS reinstallation CD.
>
> We turned the PC on, there were 2 quick beeps and a message: "drive not
> found Serial ATA, SATA-1...Press F2 to continue". Pressed F2 and a blue
> screen appeared and it said Windows Setup. At the bottom, it said "loading
> files". For the next 2-3 minutes, a number of files were being loaded (I'm
> assuming from the CD?). Once that finished, it said Setup is starting
> Windows; then Welcome to Setup, then it said Windows did not find the hard
> drive, press F3 to exit. We're at a loss as to what happened and how to fix
> it.....tks D-wade.
> </span>

Sounds like the hard drive has failed. Restart the machine and enter the
BIOS. Look under CMOS Setup. The hard drive should be listed there. If no
hard drive is listed, it or the SATA controller has failed. Download the hard
drive checking utility from the maker of the drive and check it. If it fails,
replace the drive.

Pray that you have a backup or your data, because it is very expensive to
retrieve data from a failed drive.