Windows xp pro won't start because of missing hal.dll?

Question

I tried a few things I found on google searching about fixing this problem, but I couldn't fix this problem. See, I have 2 hard drives. 1 hard drive (xp pro is installed on) has 2 partitions. It is installed on 1 of the partitions. The other hard drive is a small 10gb where I just have random files for kicks and giggles... I have been running my setup like this for 4 years and NO problems until now. I just deleted some old files from my 10g hard drive that I don't need just old pics and what not. Now I have this problem. I can NOT reformat, which I want to reformat the 1 partition that has xp pro installed on. I have extremely valuable infromation on this partition and I am foolish for not backing it up sooner with an external hard drive, which is what I wanted to do. Any ideas of how to write a boot.ini file for a floppy that will execute the installation of hal.dll? So to recap... When I turn the pc on, it sais Windows coujld not starte cuz the follwing file is missing or corrupt : windows root\System32\hal.dll. Pleaes re install a copy of the above file. Now, when I try to reformat it then will say "file \i385\hal.dll could not be loaded. error code 768. Can someone please tell me how to fix this so I can start my pc again? I have a floppy and a cd burner. I can't get usb thumb drives to be detected at boot from my bios, so any suggestions that involve a floppy or cd would be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Option 1:



Boot from your CD and follow the directions to start Recovery Console. Then:



Attrib -H -R -S C:\Boot.ini

DEL C:\Boot.ini

BootCfg /Rebuild

Fixboot



Option 2:



Boot from your CD and follow the directions below to start Recovery Console.



Insert the Setup compact disc (CD) and restart the computer. If prompted, select any options required to boot from the CD.

When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts; choose the repair or recover option by pressing R.



If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot system, choose the installation that you need to access from the Recovery Console.

When prompted, type the Administrator password. (if you didn't create one try pressing enter).



At the system prompt, type Recovery Console commands; type help for a list of commands, or help commandname for help on a specific command.



Most likely you will need to expand the file from the CD. The command would be expand d:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll. Substitute d: for the drive letter of your CD. Once you have expanded the file type "exit" to exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer.

Answer 2

When the hal.dll is damaged/missing your only real option is to completely reinstall Windows, which would cause you to lose all your data if it's not already backed up. You could bring it to a computer repair store and let them back it up for you and fix it for you, but that costs money. The question is: how valuable is your data?

Answer 3

you should probably try doing a system restore.

Answer 4

See if the information in this article will help you.



http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477

Answer 5

goto library computer . log onto http://www.pccanandfix.com