Windows won't boot - corrupt or missing hal.dll

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plasma

Gawd
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Apr 6, 2004
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647
I'm hoping someone can help me fix this one.

I came home today and XP won't boot. The error message reads:

"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"


So I have another small drive with XP installed which is how I'm posting this :) I copied the hal.dll file from my small drives copy of XP which is working but when I switch back to the other drive I still get the error message and Windows won't start. Then I tried downloading a copy of hal.dll but it didn't fix it either :mad: :mad:

Does anyone have any ideas? can I somehow use my windows boot cd to repair windows and fix hal.dll?

This is the second time in a week that I've had some serious issues with XP. I think I'm going to start looking into what distro of linux would work best for me!

Thanks :)
 
are you sure that hard drive hasn't taken a crap? When you start getting file errors like that for no good reason, especially in the time frame you mentioned it surely looks that way to me. Its almost always the case in my environment I work in..
 
I suppose the drive could be going, its a year old 250gb WD and its IDE.
Can I turn SMART on and run some diagnosis or something? is there any software than can analyze the drive to see if it is going bad?


Why would a dll file just all the sudden show as corrupt or missing from a failing drive though?

By the way the file hal.dll was there in the sys32 folder when I first looked before deleting to rewrite



What do I need to do to use the xp boot cd to repair windows? if I go into the recovery console I get a worthless command prompt, and the automated recovery console doesnt work because I dont have the disk it asks for?

So how can I try repairing windows with the boot cd? do I choose to install and then select the partition its already installed on but dont format just install?
 
LOL Well I havent OC'd anything. Im running a 3800X2 at stock speeds. And while it could be a hardware problem with the drive, its not the cpu, mobo, ram etc.. because I'm using it to type this


So how should I go about trying to repair windows from the cd?
 
plasma said:
LOL Well I havent OC'd anything. Im running a 3800X2 at stock speeds. And while it could be a hardware problem with the drive, its not the cpu, mobo, ram etc.. because I'm using it to type this


So how should I go about trying to repair windows from the cd?
Click to expand...

I'd try booting into the recovery console from teh CD. If that works, run "chkdsk /p" versus the boot drive. Chances are about 50/50 that it is just a file system problem. If so, that will fix it. If not, run a repair install from the CD.
 
Ok I got into the recovery console and ran chkdsk which ran fine, and rebooted but still got the same error.

I went back into the recovery console and tried the fix that t00thless posted exactly as directed, but it didn't fix it either. I set the attrib and deleted the boot.ini file, ran Bootcfg /Rebuild and then fixboot.

Now when I reboot I get a choice of OS's and it shows 2 versions of XP one I just created with the Bootcfg, but If I select that one it doesnt boot and I get a blank error that says dlls are needed :mad: If I pick the orginal XP option from the OS list I get the same corrupt or missing hal.dll error :mad:

Does anyone have any other ideas? If not I guess I will be reinstalling windows for the second time in 1 week for no real explainable reason!
 
plasma said:
Does anyone have any other ideas?
Click to expand...
Yes, as was posted above, run a diag on the drive itself. If anything is wrong at all, whip out your favorite drive imaging app, like Ghost, and back your data up immediately.
 
djnes said:
Yes, as was posted above, run a diag on the drive itself. If anything is wrong at all, whip out your favorite drive imaging app, like Ghost, and back your data up immediately.
Click to expand...


I just ran the Wester Digital diagnotics tool. It shows the SMART status as ok, so I ran the extended test (took a little over an hour) and it passed too :confused:

So now I don't know what the issue is? I guess I'll be reinstalling windows tonight unless someone has another idea

thanks
 
Since none of the fixs worked and I needed my computer back, I just reinstalled windows, all my drivers etc.... :mad:

Thanks for the help anyway :)
 
plasma said:
Since none of the fixs worked and I needed my computer back, I just reinstalled windows, all my drivers etc.... :mad:

Thanks for the help anyway :)
Click to expand...

Following the last step of my post above would have saved you that.

"If not, run a repair install from the CD."

The repair install just replaces the system files leaving the registry and any added drivers and applications intact. If "rebootcfg /rebuild" saw your install, it was intact enough a repair install would as well.
 
I tried the bootcfg/rebuild from the recovery console but it didnt fix it. I tried to use the windows repair install, but it stopped 1/2 thru and asked for some nvidia ethernet driver disk, so I tried my motherboard driver disk but that didnt work so I just reinstalled from scratch
 
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