Computer advice?

[Lady D]

Didn't know whether to put this in questions, tips and advice or here? Our 5 year old HP computer all of a sudden quit working as of yesterday to a certain extent, it was given to us by my parents, my dad could not maneuver through the XP. My husband was on it Saturday night and it was working fine. When I tried to turn it on yesterday it said Windows could not come up because the hal.dll file is either corrupt or missing. We have Windows XP on this computer. I googled this file on the web and it said to run a PC Recovery with the CD from the computer, we have no CD for it, however, it is on the computer itself so he preceded to do this and it was loading back the applications supposedly, however, after doing so it still didn't fix the problem. Cannot get to where we need to to do a system restore. We do not have the blue screen of death as I call it but the screen is light gray. Anyone have any other suggestions of anything different we could try? Thanks.

 

[Will B]

Couple questions...

Is there anything on it that you can't live without? If so, consider the fact that by computer standards you have a nearly obsolete computer. Might be time to upgrade because if you do get to the point where you have to have somebody else fix it the cost of the repair could easily be high enough to be considered "beyond economical repair".

Many times there are files that you have to look for if the CD has been saved to the PC. They are called CAB files. Can you find those? If not, you'll need the CD.

Can you get your hands on a CD? If not, refer to question one and accept that you, unfortunately, have a boat anchor. You might try HP support to see if they can give you a recovery disk. If not, a final suggestion would be Geek Squad.

 

[Matt J]

Wipe it and start from scratch, unless there's anything you can't live without on it. You may be able to remove the hard drive and install it in another working computer to get any files off. You'll want to Google that process if you've never done it before.

 

[Lady D]

Couple questions...

Is there anything on it that you can't live without? If so, consider the fact that by computer standards you have a nearly obsolete computer. Might be time to upgrade because if you do get to the point where you have to have somebody else fix it the cost of the repair could easily be high enough to be considered "beyond economical repair".

Many times there are files that you have to look for if the CD has been saved to the PC. They are called CAB files. Can you find those? If not, you'll need the CD.

Can you get your hands on a CD? If not, refer to question one and accept that you, unfortunately, have a boat anchor. You might try HP support to see if they can give you a recovery disk. If not, a final suggestion would be Geek Squad.

Wipe it and start from scratch, unless there's anything you can't live without on it. You may be able to remove the hard drive and install it in another working computer to get any files off. You'll want to Google that process if you've never done it before.

Thanks for the suggestions Will B and SWGB, I will mention to my husband the CAB files and see if he can somehow get somewhere where he can find the files. He managed to get to the place where it showed safe mode. Funny how a 5 year old computer is considered obselete. But don't look a gift horse in the mouth as we would say considering they paid $1500 for it 5 years ago probably. Anyway, good thing we just bought a lap top back in August, but it was nice having the two computers so we could both be on different things at the same time. If the PC Recovery would have worked he would have had to reinstall our Viper Virus software, and things would have been lost. We have a backup system, and he did a backup at one time, but hasn't recently. Wish we had now. Thanks guys.

 

[LuciferSam]

Wipe it and start from scratch, unless there's anything you can't live without on it. You may be able to remove the hard drive and install it in another working computer to get any files off. You'll want to Google that process if you've never done it before.

Nowadays there are more and more gizmos where you can easily take your old hard drive and turn it into an external USB drive. You wouldn't need to find another computer. This one is only $27.00:Ultra USB 2.0 to IDE/SATA Cable for 2.5-Inch/ 3.5-Inch / 5.25-Inch Drive with Power Adapter at TigerDirect.com

I agree, start from scratch, but make sure you can get important data off the drive.

 

[Lady D]

Thanks, I'll look into this when I get home from the laptop.

 

[Will B]

Gotta have the disk to wipe it and start from scratch, though...

 

[LuciferSam]

Gotta have the disk to wipe it and start from scratch, though...

I know, I'm leaning towards the new computer option. I'm about ready to get one myself.

 

[Elephant Child]

If you can go into computer in safe mode..(.hit the F8 key as you are starting it up...you might be able to see and save any of your important files onto a USB stick...their is a choice on safe with network...which you might try to mail any important files to your email) I would suggest a new computer...usually after awhile...old computers just get plain worn out.

 

[Lady D]

Problem is, my dad is 90 and 5 years ago at 85 he could not handle the Windows XP operating system, and my mom is in her 80's. When she gave us the computer I don't remember what all we got with it, whether she even gave us the operating system disk or if she even still had it then, too late to ask her 5 years later and expect her to remember. I have a couple of boxes of computer programs that came with various computers we have owned on disk, I will look through when I get home. Hopefully I might come across a Windows XP disk. If not, we will just have to get something else.