now is this a hardware or software problem???

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 11:36 pm

i have a 80gig Seagate Barracudda 7200.7 which i purchased last yr. Unfortunately for me it stopped functioning recently for some reason. FOrtunately it was still under warranty and was ecstatic to get it yesterday since my warranty runs out next week.
so i try to install windows xp pro...initial installation goes fine ie. formatting n copying files. Then when the computer restarts, a message at the top reads

' windows was unable to start because a file was missing/corrupt : windows/system32/dal.dll. Please install this file again for setup to continue '

i've tried this windows xp cd installation without flaws on a friend's com just 2 weeks ago. what gives?
pls help as i'm helpless with a non functioning computer!!!

k

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rovingcowboy · Post by **rovingcowboy** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 4:12 am

stick the xp cdrom in and try a reinstall that hard dive is so fast it might have missed that file.?

or try pushing the F5 or the F8 button to get the meun up and boot in to safe mode andt then browse the xp cdrom to find the missing file and copy it to your xp's system folder where it wants it.

reinstall all the antivirus and firewall programs

then reboot go online and update

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 9:00 am

It`s probably a software problem. Sounds like it could be a corrupted CD. Is it always the same file?

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Wren · Post by **Wren** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 2:43 pm

I did a search for that file and it was not to be found.

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manadren_it · Post by **manadren_it** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 4:21 pm

I'd simply try the install again, and if it doesn't wrk that time, you could have a nasty scrath on the cd or something, so borrow a copy from a friend if you can and try that.

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Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 6:38 pm

well the installation has proceeded without a hitch after i swapped my optical drives.

thnks guys

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 6:39 pm

I had that happen to me before, that the drive itself was bad. Glad you got it solved.

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Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 5:24 pm

Hopefully somebody could me out with this one as well. I had a similar problem recently that I haven't solved yet. I have a 40gb laptop drive that I have divided into 3 partitions, the first partition has XP Pro on it and is your everyday set-up operating system, the second partion is also XP Pro but it is set-up for audio recording and is bare bones with a lot of features/options disabled and the third partition is just a stoage partition for large wave files. So here's what happened: I fifnished recording some music and restarted the machine trying to boot up the audio partition and I got a message saying the dal.dll file was corrupt or missing and it would not boot up. The machine was working just fine before I restarted it. I then tried to bott up the regular partition and it did, but it was REALLY slow and it went through a check disk feature. Once it was booted up the laptop ran VERY slow and things opened very slowly or not at all. Once I was able to get My Computer to open I went to look at the other two partitions I got a message that said they weren't formatted. This process took about 15 minutes. Anyway I decided to take the drive out and put it in a USB 2 enclose and try to look at the drive on my desktop. When I plug the drive in to the USB port the entire machine boggs down and barely runs (it's a P4 2.8ghz processor), certain programs and windows won't open and if they do its really slow. Partition Magic won't even open and this file recovery software I have opens, but it takes forever to open. Once I do get My Computer to open of the file recovery software it doesn't recognize that the 2nd and 3rd partition even exsist nevermind have anythign on them. As soon as I unplug the drive from the USB port the machine goes back to running just fine and any windows that didn't open while the drive was plugged in suddenly all open. Any ideas in what is going on? I find it starnge that all of the sudden two partiotions are just completely gone. Thanks.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 6:19 pm

Hmm sounds almost like a failing hard disk. That or maybe some kind of virus, but it sounds more like a hardware problem.

I never had a drive die on me to that extent though but I'm sure it's possible. Laptop disk drivers are very delicate compared to normal drives, because of their size, so especially if the harddisk itself has been handled it could have been misshandled, perhaps.

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Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 6:52 pm

The drive was always handled with care and it was working just fine about 2 minutes before it starting acting up. I am guessing that the drive has suddenly failed, but I have never run into anything like this before. I just think its strange that I got that erro rmessage about the file and now I can't even see that the partitions even exist.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:24 pm

I never had it happen to me, but it can happen. Try recovery software but I think you're out of luck if it is a failure.

It could be some kind of virus that corrupted stuff, but the fact that it was running slow in the other PC indicates it's more then a virus, but I guess you never know since it could have messed up the drive softwarewise so that it's hard/impossible to read, making the system reading it lag. Good luck fixing this though. Hopefully you'll be able to recover that data.

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Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:32 pm

That's the thing, the recovery software I am using seems to recognize another partition on the drive, but shows nothing on it at all, doesn't even show a size of thepartition which leads me to believe that drive had something terminal happen.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:57 pm

hmmm yeah I think that's it... Sorry to hear, I hope you have a backup.

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