OK, so here is today's problem.

I've been given a dead laptop. Only thing is, I can't figure out why 
it's dead.

When you switch it on, the BIOS runs, and then nothing happens. In other 
words, the OS does not boot, nor give any indication for /why/ it can't 
boot. All I get is a black screen with a flashing cursor. (The OS is 
supposed to be Windows XP.)

Normally I would expect the BIOS to say "cannot load OS, insert system 
disk" or similar if it can't find a bootloader - but no. Normally I 
would expect NTLDR to report an error - but no. Just... nothing.

I loaded a Linux live CD, and as best as I can tell, the HD is working 
perfectly. I can see a small FAT32 partition and a giant NTFS partition. 
The latter is marked as bootable and contains all the necessary boot 
files, and much else besides. All the data is there, intact. So...??

More to the point, this laptop /was/ working just fine. And then it 
suddenly stopped working. This makes me suspicious; computers do not 
just /stop working/ for no defined reason. But I'm struggling to think 
what a computer-illiterate person could possibly do to make the OS fail 
so completely.

I did wonder if some BIOS setting had been changed which alters the 
apparent numbering of the drives or something... but no.

Obviously, I tried booting the Windows XP CD to see if I can ask it to 
reset the MBR or something... but no, Windows claims that no HD exists. 
*sigh* Windows XP has an irritating habit of "not seeing" SATA 
controllers. :-P

Does anybody have any intelligent ideas for how I can convince this 
laptop to start working again? Failing that, it shouldn't be hard to 
copy the necessary files off of it... but I'm baffled as to why it's not 
working.

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I did wonder if some BIOS setting had been changed which alters the
> apparent numbering of the drives or something... but no.
>
> Obviously, I tried booting the Windows XP CD to see if I can ask it to
> reset the MBR or something... but no, Windows claims that no HD exists.
> *sigh* Windows XP has an irritating habit of "not seeing" SATA
> controllers. :-P

If it's SATA check if the controller runs in IDE or AHCI mode in the BIOS.

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On 14/03/2012 17:26, Aydan wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> I did wonder if some BIOS setting had been changed which alters the
>> apparent numbering of the drives or something... but no.
>>
>> Obviously, I tried booting the Windows XP CD to see if I can ask it to
>> reset the MBR or something... but no, Windows claims that no HD exists.
>> *sigh* Windows XP has an irritating habit of "not seeing" SATA
>> controllers. :-P
>
> If it's SATA check if the controller runs in IDE or AHCI mode in the BIOS.

Yeah, I did think about that. AFAIK, Windows XP can't handle AHCI mode, 
so I was wondering if it was originally set to IDE and somehow got 
changed to AHCI... But no, apparently there isn't an option to change it.

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 14/03/2012 17:26, Aydan wrote:
> > Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
> >> I did wonder if some BIOS setting had been changed which alters the
> >> apparent numbering of the drives or something... but no.
> >>
> >> Obviously, I tried booting the Windows XP CD to see if I can ask it to
> >> reset the MBR or something... but no, Windows claims that no HD exists.
> >> *sigh* Windows XP has an irritating habit of "not seeing" SATA
> >> controllers. :-P
> >
> > If it's SATA check if the controller runs in IDE or AHCI mode in the BIOS.
>
> Yeah, I did think about that. AFAIK, Windows XP can't handle AHCI mode,
> so I was wondering if it was originally set to IDE and somehow got
> changed to AHCI... But no, apparently there isn't an option to change it.

Did you try a BIOS reset?

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> I've been given a dead laptop. Only thing is, I can't figure out why
> it's dead.
>
> When you switch it on, the BIOS runs, and then nothing happens. In other
> words, the OS does not boot.

OK, so I took a disk image and put it onto a virtual machine. Now the 
retarded Windows setup CD can actually access the drive. (The imaging 
tool notes that the filesystem appears not to have been unmounted 
cleanly. Oh goodie.)

Well, it turns out that if you fire up the recovery console and do 
"fixmbr", then when you reboot you get the Windows loading screen... 
followed by STOP 0x0000007B and a reboot before you can read the bloody 
message. Fortunately, this is a /virtual/ machine. I just have to stab 
the Print Screen button at the right moment. ;-)

(The "fixboot" option appears to have no effect at all. Only "fixmbr" 
does anything. And it complains about a corrupted or non-standard MBR. 
[It would be /really/ useful if it could decide which of those it is!] 
The laptop does have two partitions, for reasons unknown. A giant NTFS 
partition with the OS on it, and a tiny FAT32 partition also with some 
kind of Windows-like files on it...)

Next plan: Install a new copy of Windows, in a few folder on the 
existing Windows partition. When I do this, Windows becomes able to 
boot. The old copy of Windows still shows in the boot menu, but 
selecting it immediately provokes the message "cannot load 
%systemroot%\system32\hal.dll - file is missing or corrupt". Which is 
kinda serious. Again, it would be /really/ useful to know which it is - 
whether it's actually gone, or just corrupted.

I swear to God that Windows NT had an option to replace core OS files 
with the copies from the CD if they didn't match... I cannot find this 
option anywhere in XP. *sigh*

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On 15/03/2012 03:46 PM, Invisible wrote:

> The old copy of Windows still shows in the boot menu, but
> selecting it immediately provokes the message "cannot load
> %systemroot%\system32\hal.dll - file is missing or corrupt". Which is
> kinda serious. Again, it would be /really/ useful to know which it is -
> whether it's actually gone, or just corrupted.

Well, the file definitely still exists. And it's about the same size as 
the newly-installed copy. (Not /exactly/ the same size or date, but then 
the version number on it is different as well...)

Ho hum. At this point, I guess I just grab the files and call it a day...

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On 3/15/2012 8:46, Invisible wrote:
> I swear to God that Windows NT had an option to replace core OS files with
> the copies from the CD if they didn't match... I cannot find this option
> anywhere in XP. *sigh*

That's because they invented Windows Update.

That said, Win8 apparently has this feature.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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>> I've been given a dead laptop. Only thing is, I can't figure out why
>> it's dead.
>>
>> When you switch it on, the BIOS runs, and then nothing happens. In other
>> words, the OS does not boot.
>
> OK, so I took a disk image and put it onto a virtual machine. Now the
> retarded Windows setup CD can actually access the drive. (The imaging
> tool notes that the filesystem appears not to have been unmounted
> cleanly. Oh goodie.)
>
> Well, it turns out that if you fire up the recovery console and do
> "fixmbr", then when you reboot you get the Windows loading screen...
> followed by STOP 0x0000007B and a reboot before you can read the bloody
> message. Fortunately, this is a /virtual/ machine. I just have to stab
> the Print Screen button at the right moment. ;-)
>
> (The "fixboot" option appears to have no effect at all. Only "fixmbr"
> does anything. And it complains about a corrupted or non-standard MBR.
> [It would be /really/ useful if it could decide which of those it is!]
> The laptop does have two partitions, for reasons unknown. A giant NTFS
> partition with the OS on it, and a tiny FAT32 partition also with some
> kind of Windows-like files on it...)

Probably a recovery partition.  Make that one active and try booting off 
of it.  You will probably be able to reformat and reinstall XP to its 
original state (including out of date bloatware).  You may even be able 
to back some of the data from the NTFS partition.

> Next plan: Install a new copy of Windows, in a few folder on the
> existing Windows partition. When I do this, Windows becomes able to
> boot. The old copy of Windows still shows in the boot menu, but
> selecting it immediately provokes the message "cannot load
> %systemroot%\system32\hal.dll - file is missing or corrupt". Which is
> kinda serious. Again, it would be /really/ useful to know which it is -
> whether it's actually gone, or just corrupted.

hal.dll?

The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made.  No 9000 has 
ever made a mistake or distorted information.  We are in fact fool-proof 
and incapabable of error.

>
> I swear to God that Windows NT had an option to replace core OS files
> with the copies from the CD if they didn't match... I cannot find this
> option anywhere in XP. *sigh*

Because copying an 8 year old file over a system that has probably been 
patched every tuesday since then can not result in other problems 
elsewhere...

You have access to the directory when you boot from this new copy of 
Windows?  try and locate a new copy of this dll in the KB* or DLLCACHE 
directories.
-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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>> The laptop does have two partitions, for reasons unknown. A giant NTFS
>> partition with the OS on it, and a tiny FAT32 partition also with some
>> kind of Windows-like files on it...)
>
> Probably a recovery partition. Make that one active and try booting off
> of it. You will probably be able to reformat and reinstall XP to its
> original state (including out of date bloatware). You may even be able
> to back some of the data from the NTFS partition.

Yeah, it's got a MININT folder in it with some plausible-looking files. 
It's also got a whole bunch of stuff that looks utterly random.

As I say, in the end I just copied it all to a VM, where I can access it 
any way I like. (Gotta love how VMware will only mount the /first/ 
partition on a disk though. Thanks for that, guys...)

> hal.dll?
>
> The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 has
> ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are in fact fool-proof
> and incapabable of error.

Being incapable of error is one thing. Being FOOL PROOF is much, much 
harder. You have literally no idea how dangerous fools can be. For real.

>> I swear to God that Windows NT had an option to replace core OS files
>> with the copies from the CD if they didn't match... I cannot find this
>> option anywhere in XP. *sigh*
>
> Because copying an 8 year old file over a system that has probably been
> patched every tuesday since then can not result in other problems
> elsewhere...

Oh, sure, it usually made the OS a little unstable. But it least it 
would /boot/...

As it happens, I don't think that's even what the problem was. I'm still 
baffled as to what "really" want wrong, but hey.

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