I have issues with my computers.

You see, I have two computers that are mine. My desktop computer is primarily for personal and school use. I do all our home school stuff & checkbook on it. Then I have my laptop that I use for my business.

My Laptop is about 3 years old… the hard drive is filling up fast. Yes, I have an external drive for back ups but still … things are running slowly now. Normally, I would wipe everything and reload Windows, but that seems to be complicated because it’s a Dell Inspiron & it comes with manufacturer disks that seem to be “Dell” proprietary. I don’t have time to sit and sort through all that & I no longer have Dell Support to do it for me.

My desktop has parts that are old and others that aren’t so old. We built it up ourselves. It has been really nice… but I now have critical issues with it, which scare me. The original problem was that I was getting no video feed to the monitor. Sometimes it worked & sometimes it didn’t.  If the machine was shut off for a time & then restarted we could boot up fine. But if the machine was left on for too long, video would go bye-bye & I would be left powering down without Windows help. So, basically doing a cold boot. Not fun!

Anyway, we started thinking maybe we needed a new monitor… So we get one, but now we get the following message:

“Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.”

Great! Yet another issue! Yeah, well this one could be because of the powering down cold… OR it could be a virus…

Well, I do know how to fix this error, if its not a virus. I’ve had to do it before. However, you have to be able to get to a command line prompt. I am not able to boot into Safe Mode either… because hal.dll is either missing or corrupt. Ugh!

The only other thing I can do is load my Windows XP CD to run the Restore/Repair option.

Now, I have to go into my CMOS & changed the boot order so I can boot from CD.  I put my CD in & boot up, but after a very long time of running through all the set up files I finally get to the screen that allows me to hit the “R” to Restore. I get the beginning screen…

… but my command line prompt NEVER showed up. I let it sit, thinking maybe it is just slow… No, it just won’t load. So, I reboot again. Nothing! Not even my CMOS prompt. So, now I am wondering if,

1. Maybe the video card is fried
2. Maybe my machine is overheated
3. Maybe it needs a thorough cleaning
4. Maybe there’s a virus

Well, we’ve cleaned the machine, checked all the fans, everything seems to be o.k. there. I can’t check for viruses until I can get the machine to boot from CD…. So the only other thing I can think of is the video card is toast. So, now we’re off to buy more hardware.

I’ll have to update this story after we find another video card.

– More later.

Technorati Tags: Computers, Windows XP