Bigtime windows install issues: Need help

Originally Posted by Turbo

The ram tester showed no problems, and removing the CMOS battery did nothing either. My last options? Call HP themselves, or go to a tech store with my pc and tell them to fix it.

No!! If you do that, they will probably format your drives, and you will lose your backup. My advice to you would be to boot a LiveCD edition of Linux, and use that to copy your files to a diffferent location first. Perhaps if you can get your hands on a second PC, or an external hard drive?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Turbo

Oh, I dont care if I lose everything on C. I already backed up everything before trying to format, and I took out the second drive.

Oh it's on a second drive? That's cool then. I thought it was just another partition on the same drive. I apologise, I didn't read your message thoroughly enough.

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After trying all these things, Im still stuck on that hal.dll missing or corrupt. I dunno what to do anymore.

I'm sorry to say that I haven't a clue. You've ruled out the CD and the CD-ROM drive, and you've also ruled out the hard drive. Your ram is working, and I just don't see what else it can be.

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We're also thinking that a virus is doing this, and its somehow stuck in the bios...

I've never heard of any form of computer virus that exists independantly of the hard drive. You can almost certainly rule that one out as well. Whatever this error is, I'd be more inclined to put it down to gremlins than to a virus that can infect your BIOS.

The only thing I can imagine it could be is a fault in the IDE controller on your motherboard. It seems that data is being corrupted in the process of being copied to the hard drive, which would imply that the fault is in the hard drive or the controller. Having eliminated the drive, it must be the controller. If it is that, you will need a new motherboard.

There's nowhere I can't reach.