I JUST formatted my PC and it appears I now have a choice of 2 Windows to choose from.
1) Microsoft Windows XP Professional
2) Windows (default).

With 1, that's the Windows I just installed and it's fine but when I choose 2, this is what I get:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <windows root>\System32\hal.dll. Please re-install a copy of the above file".

What is it on about??? I only installed one and I did do a full format not a quick one when formatting.

Is there a way to get rid of this when without reformatting again?

Thanks in advance.

c:\boot.ini

delete the false entry

that´s the standart entry:
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional".......

why that happend?....mhhhh

to be correct

this is the full code

Ok this is what I have:

So I get rid of the bolded /usepmtimer after \WINDOWS right?

Honestly Merstch I don't know. To be frank, I have done 5 format's with different CD's and there all crap.

The one before this kept giving me a BSOD saying, "PROCESS1_INITIALIZING_FAILED". That was with my customised CD using RyanVM Integrator (something along the lines of nLite basically).
Couldn't fix that :knife:

hmmmm just try it since I do not have this addon you can't do anything wrong

is the current installation somekind of modified install, too ?

It's standard. Nothing modified with a program of such.

The one giving me the BSOD was modified. Not crazy modified, all I did was place an updatepack (which consists of the latest Windows updates etc. Really good, link: http://www.ryanvm.net/msfn/updatepack.html)

Well I've removed the line, which I bolded earlier. I got a new problem now *sigh*. Once it finishes loading Windows XP on the splash screen with the blue bars going across, it doesn't load into Windows. It just hangs there and I have to restart it. Infact I have to restart it couple times to get it working. Any reason why?

and in safe mode?


and your boot.ini looks like that?

maybe those ryanVM stuff is not the best thing to install
what make me wonder is ... since SP2 I have collected all MS updates
which means on update day I click all the links and manually download them (keeping them for nLite)

I got 74 updates now there are a few (like the anti malware tool) which are not included lets say 6
this means on a fresh SP2 install you need about 80 patches

this ryanVM installs 112 :o
plus some other stuff you may never need

I would try to install a fresh copy of XP with SP2 and use windows update to update it the normal way and see if the problems are gone

or download them manually from MS (I think there is a linkpage somwhere on the web with links to the updates)

Thanks for your help guys. Problem solved <3

and how?