Please help!!! I just crashed windows xp and I can't log in. I have a laptop with windows xp pro, it had 3 partitions: C (where windows is installed), D (a logical partitoin with half my HD for documents) and F (primary) with 3Gb of space and empty. Because I didn't know what the F unit was for I installed Partition Magic 7 form Paragon and I asked it to merge F in C, so I did but the software told me I can only do taht after restarting windows. I restarted and when Windows is about to begin it dis what it should, I guess, merged the two partitons and told me to restart. But when I restarted it says: 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. Now what??? I inserted the windows CD and tries to run the repair software but all it does is to open c:\windows and from there I don't know what to do. please help me!!
Did you start the computer with your XP disk? You should be able to run an update without loosing any of your program files. When you start it the set up will ask you what partition you want to install it on. Make sure that you do not have a partition F. If you do tell XP to remove it. Now run the update on your C drive. You will keep all of your programs as long as you didn't mess them up with partition magic.
