I was given an XP Home Edition that was not working at all. It wouldn't even detect the hard drive, so I cracked open the case and saw that the HD was not even plugged into the mobo, and the ribbon connector to the HD was not seated properly.

I plugged in the HD, and used needle nose pliers to straighten one the pins on the ribbon connector. The drive is now detected.

When I boot normally I get a message
"Alert! OS Install Mode enabled. Amount of available memory limited to 256MB.
Strike the F1 key to continue. F2 to run the setup utility."
When I hit F1 I get
"NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"

Of course Ctrl+Alt+Del simply starts the same process...

All I was given in the way of discs was a Windows Home Edition XP Upgrade CD-Rom with the product code.



When I boot from that I go into the Windows Setup:

• To set uo Windows XP now, press ENTER
• To repair ... using Recovery Console, press R
• To quit... press F3

If I press Enter I get the licensing agreement, requiring F8 which gives me the msg:
"Setup cannot find a previous version of Windows installed on your computer. To continue, Setup needs to verify that you qualify to use this upgrade product"

Then it wants me to insert either the full version of XP Home Edition. Or XP Pro. Or Win2000, or Millennium, or 98 or 95, etc, etc.

Obviously I don't have any of those. The only other CDs I have are an Emachines 2 disc restore set, which does nothing...

I DID go to a Microsoft page and download a 6 diskette set of floppies form a page titled "Windows XP Home Edition Utility: Setup Disks for Floppy Boot Install".

I tried running those, thinking they might work with the upgrade CD, but all they do is get me to the Windows Setup screen again. Hitting R from that screen takes me to a DOS prompt that reads:
"Microsoft Windows XP Recovery Console.
The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality.
Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer."

If there is something I need to do at this screen, it eludes me...

I also downloaded onto a floppy a utility from Western Digital (HD manufacturer) that looked like it would 'prepare' the hard drive to installation. After running it I retried all the above steps again, once again getting the same results.

I am lost.......

And if anyone answers that I need a Windows install CD... well nobody I talk to seems to have them anymore.

Do customers ALWAYS get those when they purchase a PC? Everybody I've asked about it - maybe 10-12 people - tells me that Windows XP was already loaded on their machine when they bought it, and they got nothing else beyond the occasional CD-ROM upgrade. I've looked through many friends' stash and they've all got plenty of CD-ROMs for their monitor, keyboard, printer, scanner, etc, but, so far, nothing regarding an installation.

Hey there & welcome to PCHF,

You may need a Windows XP Home disc yes, PM me your address and I'll send you one if you'd like, I have 3 or 4 of them laying around collecting dust. Or just wait, maybe someone will have instructions

Hi - Welcome to PCHF - there will assistance

You need get the files as noted below onto your HD.

I don't know the floppy disc setup routine but on one of the discs will be the appropriate files

Boot from your XP CD or in your case floppy discs

Take the option:

"To Repair a Windows XP installation using the Repair Console, press R."

So press R - at the next screen select your Windows Installation, typically 1.

You will end up with a C:\ prompt, maybe c:\windows.

(>>Hitting R from that screen takes me to a DOS prompt.)
(which is where you've been)

type as follows exactly replacing e: with the letter of your CD drive. (floppy drive?)

copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\

then

copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

this replaces the corrupt files.

Reboot - report back.

Okay, I copied those files from the upgrade CD, rebooted, and now get the msg:
"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."

Hal.dll is not so easy & I now tend to think that after Hal.dll there will be others also missing.

As i don't have a quick fix these guys seem to know what there talkin about:

Missing HAL.DLL Error Corrupt Boot.INI file Quick Fix for missing Hal.dll error Fowler Computer-Computer Repair

of which this looks good - but off the floppies????

Attrib -H -R -S C:Boot.ini
DEL C:Boot.ini
BootCfg /Rebuild
Fixboot

I cannot do an expand d:i386hal.dl_ as the website you pointed me to suggests. For one thing I don't even have a Windows directory on my root.

"Hal.dll is not so easy & I now tend to think that after Hal.dll there will be others also missing"

Obviously you're right. The ONLY files that show up on my root directory are the ntdetect and the ntldr files that you had me copy off the CD-ROM.

Weird, cause the CD-ROM seemed to be doing all kinds of stuff. I really assumed that with this set of floppies and the official Windows upgrade disc I'd be able to get this PC to run, especially if I got some forum help.

Pretty naive on my part. Maybe I better downgrade my expertise level on my forum profile.

Which means you don't have an installation to repair or upgrade whatever.

Sorry - you need to fresh install from, say, 98, 98SE, ME and then your upgrade disc. Or get a valid copy from ebay etc