Restored Compaq Ghost Image Won't Boot 2

[goombawaho]

So I took an image of the whole hard of a Compaq Presario SR1211NX. That has a recovery partition on it as well as an XP partition.

When I went to restore the image, it wouldn't boot. It gave me a "missing HAL.dll" error.

I can't boot to the system recovery partition either. Is there some reason that Ghost didn't put things back the way they were?? Even if XP would NOT boot, it would have been nice if I could have used F10 to invoke the Recovery and then I could have gotten everything back that way.

But nothings works. Any ideas?? Recovery partition changed to improper type or not hidden?? Partitions restored in the wrong order???

Here is the boot.ini file from BEFORE it was broked. It seems to show that XP was the second partition.

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

 

[goombawaho]

I was joking about the incompetence. Oversights are rare on my part - I"m hyper-aware in addition to being hyper in general. If a neighbor trims his tree, I notice it. But I understand that a normal person might miss something like that.

Already updated BIOS.

Will try the original keyboard that came with the unit (no I haven't been using it all this time because it was dirty). But, I doubt it will make any difference. It's just a basic keyboard without any special function buttons.

 

[BadBigBen]

so far what I've learned about the F10 functionality, depends on the MBR to be at factory settings, e.g. has to be a Dell MBR for a Dell Laptop, or a CompaQ MBR for the CompaQ...

the recovery is simple, in that one would copy a functioning MBR from a similar, better the SAME make and model, Laptop...

I would link you to it, but my guess is that your German is a bit lacking... ;-)

another possibility (which seemed to work for some ACER users on the German ACER Forum), would be to mark the recovery partiton as ACTIVE (making it the BOOT partition), using Diskpart or with a Partitioning Tool such as EASEUS Partition Manager. then reboot, and hit F10 should then start the recovery tool...

Here is a link, for ThinkPad, that kinda explains it:

Rescue and Recovery

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Rescue_and_Recovery

at least will give insight into the problem, when the MBR is overwritten by GRUB...

another possibility, install Linux with GRUB as the bootmanager, it should detect the recovery partition and allow you to select it to boot to/from, then running the recovery tools should get one up and going...
see:

Recovery partition - How do i access it?

http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vista/617722-recovery-partition-how-do-i.html

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

I tried using Partition magic to delete the 2nd (windows) partition and make the FAT32/Recovery Partition active. It didn't change a thing.

Also moved the recovery partition from 1st on the disk to second, proceeded by all empty space.

But, I'll do some reading. It's all an academic issue now - pure Geekville.

 

[BadBigBen]

yes, purely informational... for me as well...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"