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I had to powerdown my laptop manually when system >> shut down failed to do the trick. Ever since then, I have been unable to start windows. Instead I received the message

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the above file.

I tried following several tutorials to fix the hal.dll issue and posted my query in the Win XP Forum but soon discovered I could not proceed with the regular tutorials. My drives seem to be configured a bit differently. Using the "map" command in DOS revealed:

D: FAT32 3656MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
C: NTFS 72654MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition2
E: \Device\CDrom0

When trying to use Windows System Repair from the boot disc, instead of seeing the screen I am supposed to (Select the Windows XP Installation to Repair (Step 6 of 19), I saw

The following list shows the existing partitions and unpartitioned space on this computer.

76317 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]
D: Partition1 [FAT32] 3655 MB (1676 MB free)
C: Partition2 [Unknown] 72653 MB (72653 MB free)
Unpartitioned space 8 MB

So I googled "partition1 [fat32] + partition2 [unknown]," which led me to TestDisk. I got to the QuickSearch part (image below) but don't know what to do from here. Shouldn't the larger of the two partitions be the *=Primary Bootable? If I use the right arrow key on the HPFS - NTFS to make it a *=Primary Bootable, it tells me "Structure: Bad." How do I proceed?



If someone can provide step by step directions, I'd greatly appreciate it. I have seen the tutorials online but I'm really confused (Mac person here).

Set the big NTFS partition as *(bootable) and the small FAT32 as P(rimary)