There is a problem with the laptop..
After the initial blue screen which complained about the ntoskrnl.exe (that's all my wife remembered as she rebooted), the computer starts with the 'running bar' Windows XP logo screen, after about two seconds you see a blue flash so fast you can't read anything before it reboots again..
All the options in the boot menu (safe mode, safe mode +, safe mode ++, last known good configuration etc) have the same result..

It's not a hardware (harddrive) problem.. It's a dual boot and I let Slackware Linux do some crunching (cd /usr/src/linux && make clean && make) on the hdd and there are no problems there..

The only thing I got with the laptop was a recovery DVD (which I can't find btw), but that's a 'ghost' image so it would destroy any changes made..

I don't want to do that.


It's a dual boot and as I said the Linux boots just fine so I can copy all the important stuff to another computer before 'recovering' (what a lousy name for putting back a ghost image)..
But then I would have to reinstall Service Pack 1 and 2 and all, what like 2Gigs of patches..
All the software, looking where all the other software (CD's and downloads) came from..

Went to a neighbour and asked them for their XP (pro) CD.
First I tried the [F2] automagic rescue but that just asks for a 'rescue floppy in drive A (which the laptop obviously doesn't even have and I didn't get a rescue floppy either, just that DvD)..
So next the Recovery Console.
I do an expand e:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ c:\windows\system32
Note the e is the CD 'letter' (ugh.. I could go into a rant on those some day.. and have done irl)..
That seems to help..
Yey..

Now on to check what the cause was..
I update AVG, Spybot S&D and AdAware..

Reboot to safemode and scan..
I let the AV scan while I go to a party..

Got back.. and look at PC..
<Windows Root>/system32/hal.dll. file is missing...please install copy of file.

So I boot from CDrom

Can't even dir on C:

chkdsk /r /p

I try to expand e:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32 wtf ??
The entire windows folder is gone and is now a load of dir.chk and filenumber.chk files and folders..

Damn..
It's gonna be a long weekend..