Boot Camp XP won't respond after Parallels crash

J

jamisnicolanus

Bit poster
Build 3188/MacBook Pro

I recently started up my Boot Camp installation of XP with Parallels and while it was in the process of loading XP I got the error "the application Parallels Desktop has unexpectedly quit". I restarted parallels and got the same error again on a second attempt. I restated my machine and booted natively to XP and got the error that the error that the file hal.dll was corrupt and needed replaced. I replaced it, restarted, got the same error, and figured out that parallels had left changes on the boot.ini file. I removed the changes, finally got XP to boot, but none of my hardware works. No mouse, no keyboard, no USB so an external mouse/keyboard don't do anything. Safe mode has the same issue. I'm getting the message that my hardware has changed significantly and i need to re-activate my license. I don't mind calling MS to do that, but since i can't even click Yes or No....

I was able to boot it back up with parallels and tried installing the boot camp drivers that way, but it doesn't seem to work since the hardware the drivers are for isn't present in the VM. I also noticed that I only have one hardware configuration. I'm not sure, but i think there should be 2: one for the native hardware and one for the VM.

Anyway, nothing i do seems to get me back into XP natively. Any help or suggestions would be greately appreciated. I dread the thought of having to re-install xp.
 
Update

Still working on the issue. I noticed, however, that some of the hardware seems to be working, including the NIC. So I'm currently trying to remote into the machine. Having issues with that, however. Either the system or the remote connection will freeze randomly forcing me to do a hard restart during the boot camp drivers installation, which causes more problems. I don't know if it's because certain drivers aren't finishing installation or what. Booting through parallels still works fine, even though I'm getting blue screened like crazy trying to boot natively.
 
Yep. You need to clean shut down Parallels. It has a setting in the boot records to start up the Parallels drivers.

If you dumped hal.dll have you tried a repair install from BootCamp? (google 'Windows Xp Repair install
' if you need help)
 
working FIX for hal.dll problem and recovery after parallels crash

Before I start i want to ask 2 things:

1. I would love to hear from parallels staff comments on this post .
2. urge you to back up your boot.ini immediately after Win from bootcamp partition installation in parallels. (I wish parallels should do it as part of the install process or included it in each OS settings) . It would save me a day or two trying to guess parallels and windows programmers intents.


This fix should work every time you accidentally close parallels without exiting windows first. I find that the XP recovery console solution reported in many threads does not work!
I use this fix multiple times after forcing the parallels to quit. I am using some memory intensive applications that use up my Parallels quota fast and often make the software in parallels freeze. unfortunately there is no easy way to force parallels to halt a specific application from outside XP and the task manager will not pop up on demand.


back to the fix



Parallels seems to be modifying boot.ini when it starts running. it generates its own copy of hal.dll and kernel.exe (google them to learn what they do ). If crashing Parallels leaves a modified boot.ini that looks similar to this:

=============================
[boot loader]
timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Parallels configuration" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /kernel=ntkopvs_.exe /hal=halopvs_.dll
==============================

Now bootcamp will try to use the wrong partition and settings to run , causing the error "missing or corrupted hal.dll" to appear. This notice is misleading as its just the wrong one that is being tried to be used.

To confirm that this is the problem reboot your machine in bootcamp mode but now hold the F8 key. If your stroke registers, your screen will show a list of boot options for WinXP. (if it doesnt and the hal error appears just reboot again and press f8 ).The first option is "safe mode" the last one is "OS selection screen". Using up/down arrow select the last item ("OS selection screen") . Next screen shows two OS options "Parallels" and "Windows". Chose the "Windows" (in my case its the second one) option and press enter. If your system boots fine then your problem can be fixed by modification of boot.ini. If it doesn't , your winXP is dead. You can try "recovery console" but i would strongly suggest to cut your losses and reinstall XP from scratch.

The boot.ini modifications are simple. change your default partition to the windows a partition (usually 3) and if you really want remove all the changes remove the parallels line from the "operating systems" tab my boot.ini looks like that
=============================
[boot loader]
timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /kernel=ntkopvs_.exe /hal=halopvs_.dll
==============================

HAVE FUN
K
 
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