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Going nuts!


Nico

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Hello to everyone! I have an industrial PC (IPC from now on) I want to setup by USB but can't get past the hal.dll error!

I'm not sure what is doing what by now, so I will start from 0. This is what I did so far:

- Set the BIOS to boot from USB-FDD 1st, USB-ZIP 2nd and Hard Disk 3rd.

- Set the BIOS to force the USB to be interpreted as a HDD (Integrated peripherals -> USB Device Setting -> USB key I'm using)

- Using WinSetupFromUSB, I selected the Windows source and the target key, marked the key as Fixed disk type, formatted it using RMP to fat32, XP bootable and Boot as HDD

- GO, waited a while for it to finish, removed the key from my main computer and plugged it into the IPC.

- (To get to this I went through a LOT of trial and error tests... but to resume a bit)

- Finally got to a menu allowing me to select the first text mode installation. I got a blue screen with the Windows setup listing an unformatted main hard drive (the IPC apparently comes completely blank), so I selected that drive and the installer formatted it, continued with the installation and finally automatically rebooted.

- This is where I got stuck. If I boot using the pen drive, I get the hal.dll message. And if I boot from local HD, I get a Windows hardware configuration error bla bla.

- I've tried combinations of disk/partition from 0/0 to 2/5 on the Boot.ini file with no luck.

No matter what I do I only get this messages! How can I start all over again so I can check the disk/partition numbers and set them up correctly?

I've also tried downloading WInPE, but it would also give me hal.dll error. (Followed this post first, then this post)

What other things can I do to get this working? How can I get the right disk/partition numbers? What's booting when either of those messages appear? Thank you for any help!

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Hi, thank you for your reply. I already tried using WinSetupFromUSB version 1.0 beta 7, and the same happened. Actually I wondered, in this version there's no boot.ini file in the root of the key, while with previous versions I did have one! Is that how it should be?

I also tried this Walkthrough: Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD but it didn't work either. WinPE will not load! I created the files using copype.cmd to a folder, then copied all the files in the ISO folder to the key, started the IPC booting from every option available (holding esc on startup) and it always showed the hal.dll error screen.

Basically, whatever I do, whatever the contents of the key, I get a hal.dll error. Even a formatted empty key will produce that message, while no key connected gives the "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem".

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Actually I wondered, in this version there's no boot.ini file in the root of the key, while with previous versions I did have one! Is that how it should be?
That's fine, by design. Boot.ini on the internal hard disk is created with the proper values with all 1.0 versions, hence no need of second boot from USB and amending boot.ini on the internal disk.
If I boot using the pen drive, I get the hal.dll message. And if I boot from local HD, I get a Windows hardware configuration error bla bla.
There is possibility you are booting from the internal disk every time, for some reason.

The error message changes, because NTLDR throws 2 different messages:

1) The ARC path is not valid at all, i.e. there is no such device/disk - "Windows could not start because blah blah"

2) There are no Windows files/directory in the specified ARC path, but it points to a valid device/disk- "hall.dll not found ..."

Try some other options in BIOS for USB boot or the hotkey boot menu, that would be the first advice I can think of.

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Ok, one step closer... =)

Even if the BIOS settings were set to boot from USB-FDD 1st, USB-ZIP 2nd and Hard Disk 3rd, there was an extra twist. There is also a BIOS Hard Disk priority boot list, and (I guess since the USB is formatted to be a HDD drive) the list had the internal drive first. I changed the order and it is now going through the GUI part of the installation. I'll post again if I get stuck with anything else...

Thank you for the help!

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