Windows XP help please

[SpringHeeledJack]

I'm trying to get an old Windows XP based tower working for an offline purpose and it's got me outfoxed (not too difficult :) ) Tower has been connected to power, connected to a keyboard and mouse and connected to a screen by a 9-pin cable. All good so far. Power on and then tower turned on and the screen shows white text on black background detailing the tower system hardware. This lasts for 5 seconds or so, then blackness...

The tower fan is still working and the light is on etc, etc, but no Windows screen or anything. Any pointers ?



SHJ

[tony draper]

Have you tried booting it into safe mode?

[SpringHeeledJack]

Mr Draper! I'm a mac bod, so the only booting i'd know about would be of the foot variety over the wall through frustration. After an hour it shows on the screen "Windows can't be started because the following is missing or damaged : <windows root>\system32\ha!.d11. As far as I'm aware this machine was last used 5 years ago and since then has sat unused and undisturbed so how the software is damaged/altered is a mystery to me. :confused:



SHJ

[Thrust Augmentation]

Is it even booting past the BIOS screen? Whip the door/s off & check that everything is seated properley.

If this doesn't work try disconnecting the mains supply & removing the CMOS battery on the motherboard (a watch type cell clipped onto the motherboard), then replace it & try booting again. This will reset the BIOS to default values & may solve the problem (ASUS boards can be prone to this).


EDIT:- for hal.dll errors, have a look here;

How To Fix Missing Hal.dll Errors in Windows XP (http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/missinghaldll.htm)

[vulcanised]

Could it be that the BIOS battery has died after all this time?

[mike-wsm]

I'm not an expert but would try:
1. Insert Windows disc and let the machine find the missing file.
or:
2. Take the tower to the local shop/cafe and ask them to reintall Windows.

It helps if you can find the Windows sticker with the magic numbers for proof of legality

[Milo Minderbinder]

missing HAL.DLL is usually one of the following

bad / failing / corrupted hard drive

virus

missing boot.ini file

faulty memory (the HAL can't load as a result)

someones switched the hardware on the machine - typically replaced a single core processor with a multicore, or switched the motherboard from an APM version to ACPI. However thats unlikely now


Things to try
reseat the memory
boot the machine with a live CD such as VistaPE or BARTPE and scan the drive for errors (or with a Windows CD boot to recovery console and run chkdsk /r)
copy the boot.ini file in from another machine (note - needs to be same version of windows, and needs to point at exactly the same boot partition, which may require editing by hand)
boot with a live recovery CD and scan for virii / rootkits