Emergency!!! Pls help

[lostplanet]

oh i messed up big time

i have a XP system with 2 HDD.
i installed everything as normal on C:
then i tried to format the F: drive and in the process started to install XP on it altho all i wanted to do was format it so as it to be recognised so i crashed it midway.
now when i tried to reboot it came up with an error that the drive wasnt installed with xp correctly, but i just wanted it to boot from C: and then format the F: drive thru windows.
because it came up with a choice of OS to load,
i removed the startup config in system startup but its removed the C: boot thing instead.now it wont boot up at all and i get error

" < windows root >\system32\hal.dll" missing or corrupt
i have deleted partition on F:

how do i replace that file onto C: so i can get it to startup again?

i have to get this pc back and working by 6.30 am friday morning nooooo!

[sdkfz]

Just to be clear here, you tried to format the second hard drive using the XP install disk for the format part of the install?

If this is how I am reading it, then I'd think we could get away with just removing the dual boot part and your likley to be good to go. Check out this thread: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...move+dual+boot

Oh yeah - you do not need the install disk to format, just to to windows explorer and select te disk to format and right click- choose format and away you go

[lostplanet]

thanks very much,
yeah i tried to format drive F with XP cd, i thought it could be done that way rather than installing all of XP on it, as i couldnt see the drive in my computer
but didnt think to go into disk managemnet first, its been a longg day


i found this on google;
HAL.DLL MISSING OR CORRUPT ERROR MESSAGE
If you get an error regarding a missing or corrupt hal.dll file, it might simply be the BOOT.INI file on the root of the C: drive that is misconfigured

Here's what to do:

Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Type bootcfg /list to show the current entries in the BOOT.INI file
Type bootcfg /rebuild to repair it
Take out the CD ROM and type exit

which worked....phewww

but i am a little worried about the boot.ini in system startup

i have 2 options
"C:" with code :
"[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="c:" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home edition" /fastdetect

and
"microsoft windows home edition /fast detect" with code
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="c:" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP home edition" /fastdetect

how to get rid of "c:" and keep the proper loader without screwing things up again

Many thanks

[lostplanet]

thanks for the link, it solved my prob completely,
after in edited the boot.ini file it sorted the prob.
thanks very much

JP