virtualbox.org

Hi, I just tried to boot up windows and am being told that, "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or currupt: <windows root>\system32\hal.dll Please re-install a copy of the above file." It was working fine yesterday.

Do I have hope of fixing this or is all lost? I would LOVE to get some files off of the windows machine desktop.

Thank you!
I am running 4.0.4. r70112 in Snow Leopard 10.6.8

Make sure that you have not changed the io-apic settings.
If all else fails you can mount this guests *.vdi file to another guest as a second hard drive and retrieve you data.

Definitely haven't changed any files or settings.

What is involved in your suggestion? Basically a second install of a VM on my machine, correct? Where do I find the .vdi file needed? When setting this up it will have access to the desktop of the original VM?
Thank you!

Search for *.vdi using your MAC search tools. I don't have a MAC to be able to tell you the exact location.
As for the desktop, that is just a location under you user space in the Windows guest so you should be able to find your files/data.
You will not actually be able to boot the guest unless you can figure what happened to the hal drivers.

OK, so I found the .vdi of the corrupt windows install on my mac... what next (only set up VB once, a year + ago, so not facile in this endeavor. Thanks!

Attach it to another guest as a second drive in the guest settings of the good guest. Really shouldn't matter if the guest is Linux or Windows. You would need to know how to mount a drive in a Linux guest though.

Or install XP again (be sure you backup the original *.vdi file first) and go through the repair or just totally replace the original install and attach the backed up *.vdi as a second drive so you can get to your data.

Since I'm inexperienced at this, let me make sure I get this right...
First, the guest terminology is foreign to me, but assuming it refers to the VMs running through VB. As such, I only have one (corrupted) so in any case I have to set up an all new machine, correct? (don't know anything about Linux, btw).

does that .vdi file contain all the info I will want? ie can I copy it to my laptop, install VB there, cut/paste it in, and have my data back?
>..How do I attach a vdi as a second drive?
Many thanks!

Yup. The MAC is your host and the Windows would be the guest.

There might be one little hitch here if you have snap shots, tell me you don't please.
Snap shots would stop this cold in the water.

If you don't have snap shots then the *.VDI has everything in it. It resembles a HDD just like you would have in your standalone PC.
Since this is your only guest it would be just as easy to actually install over the original. Repair might even get everything back in tact, but if not then you attach the backed up *.VDI as a second hard drive in the guests settings. Windows will see this and install the necessary drivers and you will see this as another drive in the guest.

First thing I want you to do is back up the original *.VDI somewhere, then proceed with the repair.

Sounds doable!
Don't know what snapshots are/were
I didn't see a repair option... how do I get to that?
Thanks!
(backed up already)

Drop repair windows xp in google. There are lots of things including the repair console. All else fails you simple install over the bad one. If you have enough free space it should allow you to install and retain the old install.

OK thanks... will report back

OK, so I did a second windows install, which worked. I then copied the old AVI into the new directory (renaming the old one but keeping it, and named the original I need files from to match the new system.
At that point VB stopped opening at all. When I launch it, nothing happens. I renamed the files back to how they were, but still no luck. Any ideas? Thanks!

Have you considered a virus?

Not a virus.
OK, so after restarting the entire Mac I got it to open up with the old vdi renamed and copied to the new install. It does open Windows now, but non of my files from the VDI are there

OK, so this time it gave me the following error:
Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Sindows2.
UUID {ac525a49-02ce-45f4-af49-90c991e8bd47} of the medium '/Users/johnmichl/VirtualBox VMs/Sindows2/Sindows2.vdi' does not match the value {fca17314-804e-4a27-a060-9c474ac3d062} stored in the media registry ('/Users/johnmichl/Library/VirtualBox/VirtualBox.xml')

SO, clearly, renaming it isn't the solution, how do I "attach the backed up .vdi as a second hard drive" as Perry suggested earlier

thanks!