Linuxcnc error

So Abit of reading and poking around tonight and still no better off. Both jumpers w1 and w2 are set to the left so power is taken from the computer if I'm not mistaken. Both cr1 and cr2 lights are on and I put a meter on field power on tb1 and there's 12v on pins 1-4. So I must have power.
any ideas? Got a friend coming round tomorrow to help so he may be able to shed some light.

This was the last issue screen I had.

image missing http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n250/chelseafan5/IMG_0988.jpg

As rodw mentioned previously, that particular error ("already linked") indicates
an error in the hal file, this must be fixed before proceeding

One of my issues is I'm reluctant to make changes to anything without it being a last resort. Reason being is the machines where sold to me as "working" machines. Now I know I haven't seen them working with my own eyes but i do think they have been run. The person was a big user I believe on here.
So what I'm hoping to track down and come across is a reason for these errors rather than making alterations and then coming across the reason later down the line and the machine 5 steps backwards not working because I have made the wrong changes.

Is there a way of finding all the errors present and not just the one?

Are there any go to checks that I could make before going down the route of making changes?

As I said before

rodw wrote: You've got a couple of errors on your hal and ini files.

The second, you have the encoder pin connected twice which is not allowed. You probably need to comment one line out.

You need to fix that and move on to the next error until it is clean. search for the ..........enc0.count pin and either comment out one line.

I would not worry about making changes because I would not make any changes in the original files.
Before changing anything on a supposedly working configuration, I would backup all configuration files
and only then make changes in the machine configuration. This should be done in any case so its
easier to recover from a hardware failure

i was given a backup with some notes but i did plan on making my own back up again just for peace of mind so ill do that as well. To be honest I can see this slowly becoming a nightmare as im going to have to work out how the last person has done things and also learn about all this back ground stuff. I can only hope the bloody tool changers work. it all just seems a little strange as they really knew what they where talking about and ive looked on here and they have had a lot of activity helping others out so I find it hard to believe they didnt have the machines going so these errors shouldn't be present.

Can anyone give me a quick little run down on what the linuxcnc programme is doing when it is trying to open? what is it checking?

the machine has been fitted with rapid jog buttons and two incremental jog dials as well some other buttons that im unsure on yet as they arnt labelled. am i right in thinking HAL is what is used to connect these to linuxcnc via mesa 7i73 board?

i do apologise if i seem alittle dumb on this but im trying to get alittle information to then make the reading up, make sense. as im new to linux and any programming.