Windows Repair Install
Today I had the task of repairing a Windows installation on a computer whose RAM (memory) was becoming faulty and thereby corrupted the information (fortunately no data) on the hard disk.
Attempting a normal boot came up with the error that winlogon.exe could not run because (whatever.dll) was not found.
I had the recovery console loaded on the system, but trying to boot into that gave me and error of “\system32\hal.dll missing”.
I booted from a Windows XP CD (always have your Windows CD handy, if your computer didn’t come with one then shame on whoever sold it to you and run, don’t walk, to obtain one) and tried the recovery console from there and executed the command:
chkdsk /p
and that did indeed find and fix some errors; but alas, the system still would not boot.
My best option at that point was a Windows Repair Install.
Booting from the Windows CD I selected Install, then when it found the existing installation, chose to repair that installation as opposed to starting a new installation.
After that was complete, Windows XP did boot successfully, and with the exception of a few small customizations undone, the system was as good as before.
I then ran a test on the hard drive itself to make sure that it was not failing and found that it indeed was good.
I recommend upgrading RAM in your computer using quality memory from Crucial.com. You will get memory certified to work in your machine and tech support to back it up if you have any problems. And, if needed, warranty service should the memory ever go bad.
