[MY9]

Hey mini users,

Got a problem i hope someone can help me with.

Had my mini for quite a while now (win XP), no problems until last night when i downloaded a file (mame arcade game emulator), started extracting the rar file and it froze windows, I hard powered off and now it wont boot. I get the dell logo screen then "disk read error" "press ctrl alt del to restart".

I can get into bios options etc but i can't boot to windows can anyone offer any advice on what i should do next please?

Thanks much

Wayne

[rrfranczak3]

try using a bootable Windows XP USB flashdrive and do a repair on XP..or maybe if you can get into DOS (command prompt) from the flashdrive you can look at and fix the boot files..

PS. Dont forget to enable "Legacy USB" in your BIOS so it will boot to the USB drive

PPS. Welcome to the forum..

[MY9]

Hey Thanks,

I'm just going through the process of using winsetupfromusb to create a bootable flashdrive. I'm having to use an old win XP cd that came with my dell desktop (SP1) , seems to be copying the files over onto USB ok though.

I've checked and Legacy USB is enabled so hopefully it will work.

[rrfranczak3]

that utility is great...I am probably the one that posted it because I always recommend that one...but the thing is if you boot from it there might be a problem because your system is probably on SP2 or SP3 and you really dont want to do a repair on SP2 or SP3 using SP1 files..when it goes through c:\windows\system and c:\windows\system32 its gonna try to replace your current files with older ones and might blow up..you need to create a windows boot disk/usb with the same version that you are running..unless you are just gonna reformat and reinstall in which case you will have to re-upgrade to SP3 anyway....

[MY9]

Ya im hitting problems such as the hal.dll, i've changed the boot.ini but still getting problems. I'll look for a sp2/sp3 windows cd and start afresh.

annoying!!

[rrfranczak3]

make sure 1st that you prep the USB drive..theres an option to format it (RMPrepUSB) on the 1st screen, then on the 2nd screen make sure you check off the WinXP and use the NTFS option on the left

1st screen


2nd screen


Good Luck....let me know if you need more help..........

[MY9]

Yeah i've got all that in check

It's booting to windows setup/recovery fine but fails on things like CHKDSK /r and elsewhere i will get the hal.dll error. Basically it's stopping me from all ways of completing normal recovery or even an install of XP.

I'm thinking can i just choose format, then fresh install from USB with the XP on it?

Thanks

[rrfranczak3]

go to this link and read it...there are some things to try before you reformat

link
Missing Hal.dll - Missing Or Corrupt Hal.dll Error Message in Windows XP - Fix Hal.dll

a reformat should be your LAST option

[MY9]

Been through that, when i use bootcfg /rebuild i get error "failed to successfully scan disks for windows installations, this error may be caused by corrupt file system, which would prevent bootcfg from successfully scanning. Use chkdsk to detect any disk errors.

So i run chkdsk and get the AUTOCHK.EXE could not be located in either the startup directory or cdrom drive (I have no/not using a CD rom drive), type the full path for the location of AUTOCHECK.EXE.

I think i'll have to reformat, i wont lose anything to important as thankfully most is stored on my 8gb SD card. I just want windows working again.

edit* It wont even let me reformat or delete partitions, i'm proper stuck

Grrrrrr

[rrfranczak3]

me thinks that your SSD died..........

maybe you can check the For Sale section on the forum and pick one up cheap..Good Luck..

REMEMBER: its for a Mini 9....which is the Mini PCI-e type..a standard SSD will not work

link:

8 GIG Mini 9 SSD