Cloning IDE to SATA HD

I am trying to clone my IDE HD to my new SATA WD800 Caviar HD, using a program called Acronis True Image. The purpose of this is to eventually boot up from my new SATA HHD. I selected to clone from one HD to the other (making sure not to get it wrong) when i finished with the selection Acronis required the system to be restarted. I restarted my PC and let Acronis do its magic. But I had an error message saying that where was a problems trying to transfer a certain file across to the SATA HD, I chose to ignore the problem and let it continue with the process. When it finished it asked me to press any key to power off the PC and remove the old HHD. After doing so I powered my system up, then when it finished with the POST I get an error message.

"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

So then I googled the error found and followed this report

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/file_missing-t39851.html

But I am still getting the same error. So now i am completely stuck and have no idea to resolve this ANOYYING ******* PROBLEM!!! (Ahem..... pardon me)
any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated

thanks

 

You can copy this file from the other computer then put it in directory c:\windows\System32... or try norton ghost 8.03 from dos to clone it instead A.T.I softs .

 

I had this same issue a while ago. Read over 100 threads, tried to copy hal.dll back to the appropriate location but it did not work.

What did work was editing the boot.ini file (located at C:\ hidden) with the correct information taken from my old HDD.

I booted with a dos disk (win98se start up) navigated to the C:\ and copied the info in the new boot.ini file from the old HDD.

They were different so I edited the boot.ini file in the new HDD to reflect this and XP booted again no probs.

The boot.ini should look like this

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmc_str_masc.asp

Sorry had a better/clearer explanation for you but the system timed me out.

Cheers