Problem after mistake with Partition Magic

[pjdd]

Yesterday, I was distracted and made a mistake while doing
something I've done many times before. But I'm puzzled by the
problem it caused. Can anyone explain it and suggest a cure ?

This is what I did -

1. Attached a new HDD to my computer (Win XP) as secondary
master and partitioned it with Partition Magic.
2. Forgot to choose "Primary" for the first partition and
partitioned everything as Logical drives.
3, Shut down Partition Magic.
4. Copied a Ghost of my current C: drive to the second
partition on the new drive, along with the Ghost.exe.
5. Discovered my mistake, loaded PM again and converted the
new C: partition to Primary and made it active.
6. Disconected the old HDD, connected the new HDD as HD0.
7. Executed Ghost in DOS and restored the Ghost file to C:
8. Windows refuses to load, reporting that <Windows
Root>\System32\hal.dll was missing or corrupt.
9. Formatted C:, deleted the Ghost file and copied it again
from the old HDD, restored the ghost to C: again. Same result.
10. Booted with Win98 boot disk, formatted C: and used the SYS
command. C: booted OK into DOS.

Note: I used the same Ghost file with another freshly
partitioned HDD (avoiding the mistake made with the other HDD),
and it works flawlessly. So the Ghost backup file itself is
not corrupted.

I even tried restoring the MBR. Scandisk does not find any
problem.

When I have time, I'll delete all partitions from the HDD and
start again from scratch. In the meantime, can anyone please
explain why the problem occurs and/or suggest a way to correct
it without having to delete everything and start over again ?

 

[TheProphet]

Yesterday, I was distracted and made a mistake while doing
something I've done many times before. But I'm puzzled by the
problem it caused. Can anyone explain it and suggest a cure ?

This is what I did -

1. Attached a new HDD to my computer (Win XP) as secondary
master and partitioned it with Partition Magic.
2. Forgot to choose "Primary" for the first partition and
partitioned everything as Logical drives.
3, Shut down Partition Magic.
4. Copied a Ghost of my current C: drive to the second
partition on the new drive, along with the Ghost.exe.
5. Discovered my mistake, loaded PM again and converted the
new C: partition to Primary and made it active.
6. Disconected the old HDD, connected the new HDD as HD0.
7. Executed Ghost in DOS and restored the Ghost file to C:
8. Windows refuses to load, reporting that <Windows
Root>\System32\hal.dll was missing or corrupt.
9. Formatted C:, deleted the Ghost file and copied it again
from the old HDD, restored the ghost to C: again. Same result.
10. Booted with Win98 boot disk, formatted C: and used the SYS
command. C: booted OK into DOS.

Note: I used the same Ghost file with another freshly
partitioned HDD (avoiding the mistake made with the other HDD),
and it works flawlessly. So the Ghost backup file itself is
not corrupted.

I even tried restoring the MBR. Scandisk does not find any
problem.

When I have time, I'll delete all partitions from the HDD and
start again from scratch. In the meantime, can anyone please
explain why the problem occurs and/or suggest a way to correct
it without having to delete everything and start over again ?

hmm, HAL you say? did you move that disk into another computer, did you
change your mainboard, if so i think you should repair your OS, boot
from winxp cd ,on first screen press enter and on the second one when he
finds your previous OS choose repair

IMHO ,correct me if I'm wrong

 

[philo]

When I have time, I'll delete all partitions from the HDD and
start again from scratch. In the meantime, can anyone please
explain why the problem occurs and/or suggest a way to correct
it without having to delete everything and start over again ?
\

good idea

delete everything a try again...
if it still does not work...the HD may be defective...

run the mfg's dignostic

 

[pjdd]

hmm, HAL you say? did you move that disk into another computer, did you
change your mainboard, if so i think you should repair your OS, boot
from winxp cd ,on first screen press enter and on the second one when he
finds your previous OS choose repair

IMHO ,correct me if I'm wrong

Thanks for the response. No, there was no change of hardware.
Google search results indicate that a HAL.dll error message
points to an incorrect BOOT.INI script which specifies the
wrong boot device or partitioning scheme. But I've checked
the Boot.ini file and it's correct. In any case, the same
Ghost file works fine on the same computer with anther new
hard disk, identical model, identical partitioning down to
the last Megabyte.

As I mentioned in my initial post, the only difference between
the two hard disks is that I made that mistake in Partition
Magic with the first HDD, which was promptly corrected.

 

[pjdd]

good idea

delete everything a try again...

I guess it will have to come to that. And I did so want to
find out where the problem lies and correct it without having
to resort to the brute force method.

if it still does not work...the HD may be defective...

What I did not mention was that I made the same partitioning
mistake with TWO hard disks, and they both have the same
problem. There's no problem with a third HDD with which I
did not make the mistake. All three HDDs are identical models
from the same batch. Only the one drive with which I did
*not* make the initial partitioning mistake works. So it's
highly unlikely that the first two drives are defective.

run the mfg's dignostic

I'll do that.