Thread: windows can't boot! (thanks wgl!)

  1. #1
    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    windows can't boot! (thanks wgl!)

    My computer crashed due to an error with the wgl functions. Now when I try to boot, hal.dll is missing, so windows can't boot. My laptop has no floppy drive, so I don't know how to get the dll there. I don't have a repair or installation disk. I did get fedora to boot of the DVD eventually, but when I try to access the hard disk with the system (and my personal files) linux says
    org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-fixed
    auth_admin_keep_always <-- (action, result)
    so I was thinking that this is because linux is running off of a DVD. So I opened the "Install Fedora on Hard Drive" program, but unless I want to wipe my existing data it won't let me put it on.
    What do I do?

  2. #2
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    Ah, the famous hal.dll error.
    Either hal.dll is missing, corrupt or your boot.ini is incorrect.
    What I would do is boot into another OS or use Windows Recovery Console.
    If another OS, edit boot.ini to the correct hard drive / partition. If you don't know, guess.
    If the recovery console, you can use fixmbr and fixboot.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

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    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yarin View Post
    My computer crashed due to an error with the wgl functions. Now when I try to boot, hal.dll is missing, so windows can't boot. My laptop has no floppy drive, so I don't know how to get the dll there. I don't have a repair or installation disk. I did get fedora to boot of the DVD eventually, but when I try to access the hard disk with the system (and my personal files) linux says

    so I was thinking that this is because linux is running off of a DVD. So I opened the "Install Fedora on Hard Drive" program, but unless I want to wipe my existing data it won't let me put it on.
    What do I do?
    How did you attempt to mount the system drive, or did the Red Hat disk do it automatically?

  4. #4
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    Ah, the famous hal.dll error.
    Either hal.dll is missing, corrupt or your boot.ini is incorrect.
    What I would do is boot into another OS or use Windows Recovery Console.
    If another OS, edit boot.ini to the correct hard drive / partition. If you don't know, guess.
    If the recovery console, you can use fixmbr and fixboot.
    Sure, buy Yarin already stated that his "recovery disk" (which is a Fedora disk) doesn't seem to mount the drive properly. Although that looks more like an informative message than an error, to my eyes...

    Yarin, are you comfortable with Linux or is it foreign to ya?

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    Frequently Quite Prolix dwks's Avatar
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    I think the latter. http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showthread.php?t=96970

    Is your Windows system installed on a FAT32 or an NTFS partition? Mounting NTFS partitions in Debian is tricky. I don't know about Fedora, but you might have to do some extra fiddling to get it mounted.

    How were you trying to mount the partition? How are you now trying to open it?

    What happens if you type "mount" at a terminal? (You can probably open a terminal by looking through the applications/"start" menu, or by typing ALT-F2 and typing "gnome-terminal". If that doesn't work, try "konsole".) Can you post the output of that command?
    dwk

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    Quote Originally Posted by brewbuck View Post
    Sure, buy Yarin already stated that his "recovery disk" (which is a Fedora disk) doesn't seem to mount the drive properly. Although that looks more like an informative message than an error, to my eyes...
    There's the Windows XP CD too, which has the option to start the recovery console, if this CD is available.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  7. #7
    Frequently Quite Prolix dwks's Avatar
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    There's the Windows XP CD too,
    I don't know about Yarin, but my XP computer didn't come with an installation CD. I don't think I got a recovery disk, either. It probably asked me to create one or something, but I never did. (And now Linux has assimilated that computer.)
    dwk

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    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    Which is why it's an option. He might have one, he might not.
    Otherwise it's possible to install XP somewhere else and modify boot.ini or install Linux and mount the HD and modify boot.ini.

    Or maybe it's possible to burn a (recovery) CD off the Internet or something.
    Last edited by Elysia; 04-02-2008 at 01:18 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  9. #9
    Frequently Quite Prolix dwks's Avatar
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    Otherwise it's possible to install XP somewhere else and modify boot.ini or install Linux and mount the HD and modify boot.ini.
    That seems to be what [s]he is trying to do, except that Linux apparently can't mount the partition.

    Anyway. You can try something like this. Once you have a terminal open, as I outlined above:
    • Make sure you are root. If you are root, the prompt will end with a '#'. If you aren't, it will probably end with a '$'. Alternatively, you can type "whoami". If it says "root", you'll all set to go. If not, try typing "su". I'm not sure how your disk is set up, but that may work. If not, try typing "sudo " ("sudo" plus a space) in front of all of the commands I have outlined below. For example, "sudo fdisk -l" instead of "fdisk -l".
    • Type the command "fdisk -l". You should get an output of all of the partitions in your hard drive, and maybe the CD too, I don't know. My fdisk can't tell the difference between FAT and NTFS, unfortunately.
    • Try mounting each device listed with this command:
      Code:
      mount /dev/sda1
      or whatever device is listed instead of "sda1". After typing the mount command, see what errors were encountered, if any. If no errors appeared, you could try cd'ing to the mounted partition:
      Code:
      cd /mnt/sda1
      ls
      That will tell you if there's anything there.

      Finally, if you like what you see, you can type "/mnt/sda1" or whatever into your file browser and do whatever you like.
    • My NTFS partition has to be mounted with this command (which mounts the partition to /mnt/vista):
      Code:
      mount.ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /mnt/vista -o force
      I'm not sure what would happen if you tried to mount a non-NTFS partition this way, or if all NTFS partitions need this or not, or even whether it's specific to Debian or not.

    Note that you shouldn't type any of the double quotes that I mentioned.
    Last edited by dwks; 04-02-2008 at 01:54 PM.
    dwk

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  10. #10
    Woof, woof! zacs7's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dwks View Post
    Mounting NTFS partitions in Debian is tricky. I don't know about Fedora, but you might have to do some extra fiddling to get it mounted.
    Not if you use ntfs-config

  11. #11
    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    In Konsol I got it under the root, but when I enter fdisk or sudo fdisk it responds with "bash: root: command not found".

    I don't have a XP recovery disk (and I never had the option to make one either).

  12. #12
    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    Also, "mount /dev/sda3" doesn't work, it says "mount: can't find /dev/sda3 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab". While hoving over my partitions in konquer, the toolbar says "Unmounted/SYSTEM" and "Unmounted/MYDATA", so you are right about that being the problem.

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    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yarin View Post
    Also, "mount /dev/sda3" doesn't work, it says "mount: can't find /dev/sda3 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab". While hoving over my partitions in konquer, the toolbar says "Unmounted/SYSTEM" and "Unmounted/MYDATA", so you are right about that being the problem.
    That's because you didn't give a mount point. You need to say "mount /dev/sda3 /path/to/mount" where /path/to/mount is some real directory somewhere. If you omit the mount point, mount will attempt to find it by looking in /etc/fstab -- and there's no entry for it there. After mounting, the NTFS filesystem can be found in /path/to/mount.

  14. #14
    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    Okay, I mounted to "/mnt/", and I was able to read the files, but not edit or delete any. This really doesn't surprise me (same thing happened on the last mac I was on), but now what?

  15. #15
    Frequently Quite Prolix dwks's Avatar
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    What does the output of the mount command say? For example, this is one line of mine:
    Code:
    /dev/sda2 on /mnt/vista type fuseblk (rw,noatime,allow_other,blksize=4096)
    See the "rw"? That means it's readable and writable. If yours just says "r" or maybe "ro", then it's mounted read-only. If it says "rw", then you're not editing/deleting files properly.
    dwk

    Seek and ye shall find. quaere et invenies.

    "Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it." -- Alan Perlis
    "Testing can only prove the presence of bugs, not their absence." -- Edsger Dijkstra
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