HP Pavilion a1730n boot problems

[Mieka]

I have Vista, I bought my computer two years ago (Feb 2007).  My computer will not start up properly.  My son bought an external hard drive, and apparently when he was asked, "Do you want to overwrite the boot sector?" he said yes.  He also installed Linux on his external hard drive because he wanted to use Linux wherever he may take his hard drive.  After transfering some data, he unplugged his external drive and shut down the computer.  When we tried starting up the computer (without his hard drive plugged in), all the computer would do on its own was give us a DOS text message saying:
 
Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.
 
I tried plugging his external drive back in and restarting.  The DOS text error we got was:
 
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt.
Windows root\system32\hal.dll.
 
I restarted, pressed ESC to get to the boot menu, and tried booting up directly from his external hard drive.  It didn't work.  I used a Linux disc my son had and was able to boot up with it and view my files.  We saved important files onto my son's external hard drive.  I put in my Recovery Disc and tried (from disc, then from the hard drive) to repair the hard drive.  It told me it could not repair it (both times).  I tried using the Recovery Disc to go back to a restore point.  It told me there were no restore points.  I also tried selecting "Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that work)" on the Advanced Options Menu (pressing F8 repeatedly on start-up to get this menu).  This also did not work.  When I ran my Recovery program from my hard drive, I could choose HP Recovery or Vista Home Premium (recovered).  I chose HP Recovery for repair and restore attempts.  After those failed, I chose Vista Home Premium (recovered), and my computer was able to load my desktop, settings, and files successfully.  In order to boot and use my computer as I always have, I must now use my Recovery disc, and go in the back door (so to speak).  I think I need to restore the master boot record, but nothing seems to be getting me there.  I may have to use BCDEdit, but I don't know what commands to input at the DOS command prompt.  Suggestions?

[erico · Accepted solution]

Give this a try.

Do be aware that if your son like to play with dual-booting you should probably buy him a pc to play around with or you will end up in the same situation again.

[Mieka]

The page you directed me to was to recover the Vista Bootloader from the DVD.  Since I am using HP, I do not have a Vista DVD, but this page clued me into easyBCD.

Like I said before, I was able to get into my desktop on Vista through a back door, so to speak.  I would load my Recovery Disc, go into the Boot Menu (ESC on start up), choose to boot from a disc, run the recovery program from the hard drive, and choose Vista (C drive rather than D drive HP Recovery).  Since I was able to get into my desktop (with my disc), I was then able to go online and download easyBCD, a free program from neosmart, and using easyBCD I could reinstall the Vista Bootloader.  I restarted, and was able to choose to boot from my D drive (HP Recovery) or C drive (Vista).  Once I did that, I went into Control Panel, and in System, Advanced System Settings, Startup and Recovery Settings, I made Vista my default OS and unchecked time to display list of operating systems (because I only have/want one OS).  Now Vista starts up automatically as desired.

Thanks for the help!