Ide disk conflict with sata during win xp load causing dual boot & hall.dll error

[sortking]

Hi

Recently I removed an ide hard disk and later placed it back. I did not plug it up to any other computer. Now when windows XP is loading the computer recognizes this ide disk as having an XP install on it when it does not. I believe there may have been in the past, however all that remains is file backups. If I select either XP option at the boot screen I recieve the replace hall.dll error. If I boot my sata disk without the ide disk plugged in, Windows loads normally.



I fixed the problem but cannot delete my post.

 

[Peddant]

I fixed the problem but cannot delete my post.

Tell the world what fixed the problem.We like solutions even more than problems.Welcome to Techspot,anyway.

 

[sortking]

The solution

As I mentioned, I believe there may have been a previous winxp installation on the ide drive. I changed some settings in bios for the bootable add-in sata to be higher priority. While this was not a problem initially, when I placed the drive back into my machine, the jumper settings/cable position may have been conflicting with a third drive. I'm not completely sure what did the trick because I changed it all in one shot.

If anyone had any idea how to remove the leftover boot information from the ide disk I would appreciate hearing it.

 

[Peddant]

If anyone had any idea how to remove the leftover boot information from the ide disk I would appreciate hearing it.

If you mean that your presented with a boot menu at startup,with two options on it,then you can fix it either by -

1.Start/Run/msconfig [enter]

Look on the boot.ini tab and click the button that says "Check all boot
paths". The system should find that you only have one install and offer
to fix the boot.ini entry for you.Go ahead.

2.If it still thinks you have two installs,you can remove the line in the boot.ini
relating to your old drive.Be careful.Read this first HERE

If you don`t get a boot menu at startup,you don`t have a problem.