following windows update. hal.dll corrupt

Hi as titled.

Upon booting after POST, windows was saying corrupted hal.dll or other system file - i cant quite remember which now.

Anyway I am doing this for a friend.

She has her pictures and data still stored in her "documents ".

Now, I have tried to do a reinstall of windows booting from windows xp install cd, however i choose to install over the existing one.

three things:
1. the install process gets to "checking system disks, this may take a few minutes depending upon their sizes ", This process took well over 2 hours to do just 25% of the disk (this disk is about 80gb in total i'd say).

2. I dont really want to lose the important data but if it comes down to it, tough.

2b. I have already tried Windows P.E (a stripped down version of windows that runs at command prompt/ pre-windows).

2c. I have also tried my other box of tricks with trying to access C:\ (local disk) from a bootable cd (to command prompt of course).

3. The computer no longer boots even to the error message, as i think windows installation cd has probably further corrupted the boot file.

Lastly, windows p.e etc are stating C:\ (local disk) as an incorrect drive letter or whatever.

So here, we are looking for a fix, I am looking to reinstall windows XP, however the section where it took two hours to get to around 25% of checking the disk is worrying my greatly.

Last tiny thing:
I remember reading a long time ago about something like ram drive or something on the win xp install cd to improve the speed of the cd reading, although i dont believe that will help in this instance!

The system is a Pakard Bell laptop.

Cheers
Paul
p.s sorry to dive straight in here.

 

You have every symptom of a failed hard drive rather than a corrupt installation of XP.

If a Bart's PE CD will not let you access the drive, send it to a data recovery company.

 

***** that, will try and put it in another laptop or piggy back it somehow..

i know what you mean now, its starting to look like its not properly mounted.

Now thinking a full format, with a view that it could fail again, and in the mean time get hold of another drive.

Afaik the laptop ran out of warranty a couple of months ago - bloody typical.

And if the drive is a !@&*ing maxtor drive i will grab a dead maxtor drive from my pile / collection and launch it through their head office window, guaranteed.

Cheers for your help anyway, kind of helps to get someone elses perspective.

Paul

 

Ah and now i put 2+2 together..

i tried system rescue command prompt tool from windows xp install cd the other day.

It wouldnt let me access the administrator account with blank password.

So i used a "special tool" to get into the SAM configurations from command prompt, edited the password back to blank (even though thats what it already read), And upon trying to access administrator to recover the machine again it once again said invalid password.

This tells me something is seriously mashed up.

 

would go to the hdd manufacture site and use their test utility, if the utility says the hdd is good then might find a program to fix the error.

does the bios identify the hdd correctly ?
Have never used Bart's PE CD so do not know just what it all will do.