Dual XP OS installation-Old OS will not boot- needs hal.dll-Old OS has empty folders

TIA for your help on this issue:

Here is the short version:
I needed 2 XP installs on different partions: one for Office and graphic work, the other for Video and Music work. Here is what I did:

1) I Partitioned C drive (XP Pro)
2) Installed Acronis Boot Manager
3) Installed another XP Pro on new Partition (G) from Win XP Pro CD
4) After reboot, Original XP will not boot (missing System32\hal.dll)
5) New XP install works but when I go the C Drive "C:\Document and Settings", "C:\Program Files", "C:\Win32", and other folders belonging to original XP installation on C drive are present, but empty (Zero K)

Here is the long story:

I wanted to set up a Dual XP boot system. I work in high end graphics, 3D, animation and such, but I also work in video editing and music composition. Each specialty uses a ton of resources and dedicated hardware and software configurations. I tried setting up different profiles within XP but it was cumbersome, so I decided to set up a dual boot of XP Pro: One for Graphic works and regular office work, network, Internet and email and one for Video and music work with only the programs and hardware needed for the task.

My original set up was 2 disk drives: C:/ and E:/, the C drive contained the OS but the E drive contained the "My Documents" folder, "My Pictures", My Videos etc. I did that with Tweak UI if I recall.

Yesterday I partitioned my C drive and created a new bootable partition. I also installed Acronis Boot manager. I proceeded to install XP pro into the new partition (let's call it G:/) and after the installation I restarted. At first I didn't think anything was wrong, but when I went to restart the computer the first thing I noticed was that Acronis OS selector was not active. All I had was the usual boot screen with 2 choices of xp. The upper one is the new XP Pro install on the G drive, the lower one I is the old XP Pro install on C Drive.
When I tried to start from the original XP installation (C Drive) the system told me that I was missing HAL.DLL (system32/hal.dll).
I started the new XP OS (the one I am writing from) to go look for my system files and I discovered that the old XP OS on my C drive had practically disappeared:

All the necessary folders are there, but there are no files inside the C:\Document and Settings folder, nor there are any inside the C:\Program Files. My Win32 folder only contains another folder called Photoshop and the C:\Windows folder is empty as well.

I am not talking invisible files here. I set up the new OS to show all the invisible and system files and the size of these folders is "0 kb".

Thank God I did not keep "My Documents" in the usual place or it would have disappeared the same way everything else has in the Document and Setting Folder on the C drive (including the My documents for the Administrator on the old XP OS).

I searched for the HAL.DLL fix and I found several fixes, but I have a feeling that HAL.DLL is just the first of many missing files.

Fortunately, I have several backups of my files and I have a Ghost file of the OS only a few months old. The only important issue, beside the pain in the neck of having to reinstall all my programs, drivers and pheripherals, would be my Outlook eMail. I had some important correspondence there that I have not backed up in a while.

The ideal solution would be to restore the old XP install, but I am weary of touching my C drive and risk overwriting important files. My best guess is that the files are still there (How could a fresh install on a different partition have deleted them?) but they have become invisible along with all the system files.

Does anyone know what went on here? And more importantly, does anyone have a fix for this?
I had never used the Acronis Boot manager before, but I have used the Partition manager and I think the Acronis Suite is the best on the market. I have a feeling that this is not Acronis fault.

TIA for your kind help, I hope others have encountered this problem and can help me fix it.

 

UPDATE: Since this post I was able to determine that OS Selector is the cause of the disappearance of my folder contains.

I found the directory BOOTWIZ in my C folder and within it I found all the missing system files. I will post a new thread to address the problem now that I have a more focused outlook on it

 

I have the exact same situation after resizing partitions. Dual boot of winxp-home on separate partitions. Reports no hal.dll. I copied hal.dll from other Winxp-home OS to system 32, rebooted and get "can't find system files."

So, what is the solution?

kenarmst

 

Is someone going to reply to the post?

 

Hello all,

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Management Software.

Please note that after installation of the second copy of Windows (if you installed it not using Acronis OS Selector) you need to re-activate Acronis OS Selector. You can do it while booting from a Rescue Bootable media.

Acronis OS Selector saves all its configuration files and system files of the current operating system(if "Protect folders" is enabled) in the \Bootwiz folder. You can restore all system files/folders during boot of the particular operating system (if you have corresponding option enabled).

Please read Chapter 8. "Installing and using several operating systems on a single PC" of the users guide for more information.

If you still experience troubles please do the following:

- Download Acronis Report utility from http://www.acronis.com/files/support/AcronisReport.exe;
- Run Acronis Report utility and select the "Create bootable floppy" option;
- Insert a blank floppy disk in the floppy drive and proceed with creating the bootable diskette;
- Boot the computer under consideration from this diskette and wait for report creation process to complete;
- Send us the report.txt file from the floppy disk.

This would provide us with detailed information on the hard disk partition structure.

Please collect the information requested above and contact us from our web-site: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/support/ . Please don't forget to send the link to this thread along with gathered information. This would allow us to investigate the problem and help you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Semyonov Vasily