WDS, OEM Partitions & hal.dll missing
- Well, I've managed to install WDS, capture an XP image and redeploy back to a machine.
Now it worked fine when I deployed back to the same computer, but when I moved onto a different machine I get a..
Windows don't boot because the file <Root Windows>\system32\hal.dll is missing
Please re-install a copy file.
...upon rebooting after installing the image. Its EXACTLY the same hardware - fortunately, after extensive googling I managed to find out what was causing the problem - an OEM paritition. Remove the paritition before imaging and *bang* everything works. Of course you can't see the partition at the disk management screen before reimaging so that doesn't help
So, the solutions that worked were for me with the default tools available
Booting into the Windows Recovery Console and rebuilding the boot.ini to point to the correct partition.
OR
Boot into WDS as if deploying an image
once logged on hit Shift+F10 to get a Command promptDISKPART
once the Command Prompt closes you can continue the image.
SELECT DISK 0
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
EXIT
EXIT
Ok - so this gets me around the problem, but it doesn't really address it. What if I want to keep the OEM partition? I know whenever I call Dell with a hardware fault, the first thing I'm going to have to do is run their annoying hardware test software off this paritition. It also add additional (very clunky) steps into the process that is basically a smooth painless process - I don't want to have to mess around with this kind of stuff with every PC that I have to reimage.
Soooooo - the way I see it I have a couple of options
1. Automate DISKPART steps.
2. Work out how to stop the OEM partition being marked as where the OS is in boot.ini
3. ??
4. Profit!
Personally, I want to do number 2 - so, can anyone help?
Réponses
Leaving the OEM partition is optimal on the Dells, we ran across the same issue. Before sysprepping an image, we now always double-check the boot.ini and make sure of two things. First, that it represents the correct partition (partition 2) and secondly, that it is not using the SATA drive ID as the boot device, both of which will cause the hal.dll missing error.
We did find one other item that seems to affect the Dell laptop images, but only sporadically. Some similar models have a 32 MB OEM partion and some have a 64 MB OEM partition. It should not matter the size of the OEM partition, but we have seen the hal.dll missing error if we image with a comparable image. For example we have several D620's, some have 40GB drives, some have 80GB and some have 120GB. We created the image using the 40GB (for the obvious reason that an 80GB image won't image to a 40GB drive), but that image has only a 32MB OEM partition. The 80GB and 120GB ones have a 64MB OEM partition. We cannot image the 40GB onto the 80 and 120, but can image the 80 onto the 120 just fine. We have not yet determined how to work around this, except for having two images for the three different configurations. Go figure.
Toutes les réponses
Leaving the OEM partition is optimal on the Dells, we ran across the same issue. Before sysprepping an image, we now always double-check the boot.ini and make sure of two things. First, that it represents the correct partition (partition 2) and secondly, that it is not using the SATA drive ID as the boot device, both of which will cause the hal.dll missing error.
We did find one other item that seems to affect the Dell laptop images, but only sporadically. Some similar models have a 32 MB OEM partion and some have a 64 MB OEM partition. It should not matter the size of the OEM partition, but we have seen the hal.dll missing error if we image with a comparable image. For example we have several D620's, some have 40GB drives, some have 80GB and some have 120GB. We created the image using the 40GB (for the obvious reason that an 80GB image won't image to a 40GB drive), but that image has only a 32MB OEM partition. The 80GB and 120GB ones have a 64MB OEM partition. We cannot image the 40GB onto the 80 and 120, but can image the 80 onto the 120 just fine. We have not yet determined how to work around this, except for having two images for the three different configurations. Go figure.
