| Author |
Windows Folder Gone
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| Exit12 2004-09-10, 7:57 am |
| Hi
Turned on my PC this morning to be confronted with "hal.dll is missing or corrupt" please replace file in system32 folder blah blah....something to that effect.
Was unable to do this I discovered the windows folder had dissapeared (meaning no system32 folder).
I hooked the drive up to another pc as a slave. When I browsed through it, right enough I have no windows root folder. I've ran chkdsk on the drive and tried other fixes as suggested such as bootcfg /rebuild etc.., none of these work as windows folder has gone. Anyone come across this before? I've ran tests on the drive and it's passing saying no errors etc.. I'm running a file recovery program just now to see if it finds anything 
It was working as normal last night and I just shut it down as usual. It's strangeee | |
| Redstar 2004-09-10, 9:47 am |
| Go to search this computer, show all hidden files and folders. | |
| Exit12 2004-09-10, 10:02 am |
| Hi
Thanks,
Already tried this amongst everything else I can think off. I've just reinstalled windows as pretty much everything important on the drive seems to have vanished! Luckily I had an urge a few days ago to back up most of my important data which has proved to be a life saver on this occassion.
Could a faulty slave drive that was connected to my PC at the time have caused this?
Thanks again | |
| enforcer 2004-09-10, 10:40 am |
| You sure you weren't running Linux?
just thought I'd ask  | |
| Exit12 2004-09-10, 10:51 am |
| Yup I am running Linux, not on that machine though! 
Just damn annoying how a whole operating system folder can vanish after shutting down a PC. Never seen anything like it before. | |
| Deja-vue 2004-09-10, 11:52 am |
| Insert WinXP CD, boot from it, choose repair in Recovery console.
Also give this
a good read.
let us know how you did.
 | |
| Deja-vue 2004-09-10, 11:54 am |
| i haven't tried this one yet, but it would be interesting to find out:
Boot from your CD and follow the directions to start Recovery Console. Then:
Attrib -H -R -S C:\Boot.ini
DEL C:\Boot.ini
BootCfg /Rebuild
Fixboot
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| Deja-vue 2004-09-10, 11:59 am |
| hmmm, i see you already tried that.
(should have read the entire post)
 | |
| Exit12 2004-09-10, 12:13 pm |
| Thanks for the replies Deja!
yup, already tried the bootcfg commands. That's when I realised there was a bigger problem than the hal being corrupt.
I was unable to extract the hal.dll to sytem32 folder because system32 is within the windows root folder and that had simply vanished.
I was running vm workstation on the drive in question, which had virtual copies of server, xp and 2000.
Do you think this could be anything to do with it? with xp being a host and virtual guest machine on the same drive? Unlikely I guess but I'm really interested in finding out what could have caused an O/S to just vanish! | |
| afalbrig 2004-09-15, 9:08 am |
| This could be a case of file system corruption, though I'd expect CHKDSK to fix it.
And this isn't something I wouldn't put past virus writers; I saw a similar example some years back. | |
| Freddy 2004-09-15, 12:20 pm |
| Definitely an interesting situation. I also run a virtual machine on my machine with Server 2003 in it. I have never had any problems caused by that though. |
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