Hard Drive Error

[Bounty_Bam]

I tried re-installing XP Home on my partners PC yesterday, as her previous installation was unstable. XP successfully formats drive C, but when copying setup files to the drive, i get many many errors saying that setup cannot copy *****.*** to the drive. It gives me the option to exit, or skip file (stating that XP could be unstable if files are skipped).

So, next i get my slave drive from my PC, and stick it into my partners as a master, and hers as a slave, XP boots up fine (I had XP installed on my slave). I can now access her hard drive, which obvisously look a bit odd, as XP formatted some files and failed copying others.

I wipe that drive clean by deleting the whole WINDOWS folder. Now, what I wanted to do is copy the entire WINDOWS folder from my hard drive and paste it onto hers, but I couldnt copy some files as they were currently in use by windows. so i put my hard drive back into my vista PC as a slave (as it was) and made a copy on the WINDOWS folder. Popped it back into my partners machine and master, and coppied the whole WINDOWS folder to hers, successfully copies.

Then I removed my hard drive and switch my partners back to master, and booted. I now get this error message:

NTLDR is missing
Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart


Is this a HDD malfunction, or can this be resolved without buying a new HDD?

[peterb]

No - not a malfunction - but you have only copied the files that live in the file system.

NTLDR (NT loader) is a 'program' (or more correctly a routine or piece of executable code) that lies outside the NTFS file system, and is used as part of the boot process. You may be able to re-install that from your XP CD by booting from it in recovery mode.

Google missing NTLDR for more information.

However, while I say it isn't a malfunctuion, the fact that you couldn't install from the CD with the disk installed in the target machine does indicate a problem with that machine which needs to be resolved.

Start by running memtest 86+ to ensure memory is OK. If it is, you may have a PSU problem, or problem with thye hard drive controller on the mobo.

[Bounty_Bam]

Thanks, I googled and found what you just told me, to use recovery console. I have to commands to enter, and ill get back with the results

[Bounty_Bam]

I got that problem sorted, but now I get something about 'cant find hall.dll' in the system32 folder, but I looked and it IS there?

[peterb]

Hmm - getting outside my comfort/knowledgezone on this one. I'm still concerned by the fact that you couldn't just do a clean install on the target machine.

However this link may help

Langa Letter: XP's Little-Known 'Rebuild' Command -- XP Management -- InformationWeek