help! boot.ini problems

OKay i bought my laptop and used it for a month, and one day out of the blue it wouldnt start up. Upon start up i get this...

Invalid boot.ini
boot from C:windows\

then it changes to:

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.

I also cant boot in safe mode. I cant boot from anything.

I tried using my xp disc to re-install xp, but it didnt do anything. It said it replaced the one i have on there but its still doing that same thing.

 

should i just throw it away? haha

 

Maybe this can do the trick:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=291980

 

okay ill give it a shot

 

okay now once i did

"bootcfg /rebuild"

it scanned for windows installations... then said:

"Error: Failed to successfully scan discks for windows installations. This error may be caused by a corrupt file system, which would prevent bootcfg successfully scanning. Use chkdsk to detect any disk errors.

and when i run chkdsk it says the volume is in good condition.

 

Try to perform a thorough disk scan:

 

i did that already. All it did was list the results

 

Know that you performed a chkdsk, but did you perform the chkdsk with the /r option as it is somewhat important ?

After doing the chkdsk, try to do the rebuild again.

If the chkdsk/rebuilds fails to help, then I have no other suggestion than to re-partition and install from scratch. But you might want to wait with that, incase someone have a good idea of what to do.

 

yes i did it with the r oprion and im doing it again as we speak. I also tried to do the bootcfg \rebuild and it also did the same thing. now...

this is my second time doing chkdsk /r and it finished at 100 percent then tried doing it AGAin ELEVEN TIMES!!! before it caught on, and now its checking allllll over again.

 

right now i dont give a **** if i lose all my info that i have on my computer or not. I just need it to work. I move in 5 days and i need it to be up and running.

 

oaky its done checking and i tried to rebuild again but its giving me the same messege and telling me to run chkdsk AGAIN. After chkdsk was completed it said it found one or more errors and fixed them. I again ran bootcfg /rebuild and its saying the same exact thing.

 

if you need to recover any of your data use GetDataBack:

http://www.runtime.org/

I had the same problem and that was the only solution I could find .. although I didn't do most of the things that snakefoot has mentioned

 

okay, i deleted windows completly off and loaded it back on. thanks for the help anyways guys