[RK16]

Hi, I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop, it's a Dell Inspiron with Windows XP. When you tuen it on the message on screen is

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

I do not have a copy of the Windows CD to use.

Does anyone know if this can be fixed or do I have to have a Windows Program CD?

Thanks

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Hi there

The best thing I can do is refer you to a website that has about 10 different solutions to this problem:

http://pcsupport.abo...ssinghaldll.htm

If you need advice with any of the solutions please ask here. You will need a windows CD for several of the solutions.

[NeonFx]

Hi there

The best thing I can do is refer you to a website that has about 10 different solutions to this problem:

http://pcsupport.abo...ssinghaldll.htm

If you need advice with any of the solutions please ask here. You will need a windows CD for several of the solutions.

[Broni]

If you have Windows CD...(if you don't have Windows CD, scroll down)

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD and assure that your CD-ROM drive is capable of booting the CD.
2. Once you have booted from CD, do NOT select the option that states: Press F2 to initiate the Automated System Recovery (ASR) tool.
You’re going to proceed until you see the following screen, at which point you will press the “R” key to enter the recovery console:



3. After you have selected the appropriate option from step two, you will be prompted to select a valid Windows installation (typically number “1″).
Select the installation number, and hit Enter.
If there is an administrator password for the administrator account, enter it and hit Enter (if asked for the password, and you don't know it, you're out of luck).
You will be greeted with this screen, which indicates a recovery console at the ready:



4. There are eight commands you must enter in sequence to repair your problem..
I will introduce them here, and then show the results graphically in the next six steps.
NOTE. Make sure, you press Enter after each command. Make sure, all commands are exact, including "spaces".
These commands are as follows:

CD..
ATTRIB -H C:\\boot.ini
ATTRIB -S C:\\boot.ini
ATRIB -R C:\\boot.ini
del boot.ini
BOOTCFG /Rebuild

Note about the above command.
BOOTCFG /REBUILD command which searches for pre-existing installations of Windows XP and rebuilds sundry essential components of the Windows operating system, recompiles the BOOT.INI file and corrects a litany of common Windows errors.
It is very important that you do one or both of the following two things:
A.) Every Windows XP owner must use /FASTDETECT as OS Load Option when the rebuild process is finalizing.
B.) If you are the owner of a CPU featuring Intel’s XD or AMD’s NX buffer overflow protection, you must also use /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN as an OS Load Option.
For the Enter Load Identifier portion of this command, you should enter the name of the operating system you have installed.
If, for example, you are using Windows XP Home, you could type Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition for the identifier (it's not crucial, however what the name is, as long, as it's meaningful).
Here is your computer screen:



5. Following command verifies the integrity of the hard drive containing the Windows XP installation. While this step is not an essential function in our process, it’s still good to be sure that the drive is physically capable of running windows, in that it contains no bad sectors or other corruptions that might be the culprit:

CHKDSK /R

6. This last command writes a new boot sector to the hard drive and cleans up all the loose ends we created by rebuilding the BOOT.INI file and the system files. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ? just hit “Y”, then Enter to confirm your decision:

FIXBOOT

7. It’s time to reboot your PC by typing
EXIT
and pressing Enter.

With any luck, your PC will boot successfully into Windows XP as if your various DLL, Hive, EXE and NTLDR errors never existed.



If you don't have Windows CD...
Download Windows Recovery Console: http://www.thecomput...om/files/rc.iso
Download, and install free Imgburn: http://www.imgburn.c...hp?act=download
Using Imgburn, burn rc.iso to a CD.
Boot to the CD...let it finish loading.
When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
Then, follow instructions from Step #3 above.

[RK16]

Thanks for the suggestion but I just tried the solutions that don't require the Windows CD but no luck. Even if I start it in safe mode I still get the same hal.dll error message...

[RK16]

Just saw Broni's message, will try that now, cheers!

[RK16]

Hey Broni, I don't have the windows CD so I downloaded and burnt to disc using Imgburn like you suggested. Then I booted the laptop from the CD and it seemed to be working but then it just stops and a blue screen comes up that says "A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer" "check to see if you have adequate disc space" etc etc

Any ideas?

Couple of points, don't know if they're relevant -
The CD I burnt the image to was a CD-R (not CD RW), does this matter?

Before the laptop crashed earlier today there was very little space on the hard drive.

If you need any other info let me know, thanks for the help.

[Broni]

"check to see if you have adequate disc space"
Before the laptop crashed earlier today there was very little space on the hard drive.

That's the most likely the issue, which prevents you from repair progress.
You'll need to free some space.

At what point of my manual were you stopped with the error message?

[RK16]

I had put the CD into the laptop, pressed F12 and set it to boot from the CD drive.

It says "press any key to boot from CD" which i've done

A blue screen "windows set up" comes up
On the bottom of the screen it says "set up is loading files (......)"

It then stops on "set up is starting windows" and goes another blue screen with the error message I told you about "a problem has been detected...etc)

The only way I can get off this screen is to power off the PC

[Broni]

This is not good.
I'm afraid, your only option is to buy laptop hard drive USB enclosure, hook it up to another computer, and free some space.

[NeonFx]

Or use a live CD solution.... Bart PE or a Linux Live CD that supports ntfs....

[RK16]

Broni / NeonFX,

Thanks for the quick responses - afraid neither really means much to me, I'm a complete novice at this stuff. What do you think is my best option? And can you tell me what to do, step by step?

If that's a huge request or it's going to be too complicated for me to follow, don't worry! Would love to be able to fix this but realise I might well be out of my depth with this stuff.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[RK16]

And there's no rush with the response, it's getting late here in Ireland so I prob won't be checking again til the morning!

Thanks again.

[Broni]

Or use a live CD solution.... Bart PE or a Linux Live CD that supports ntfs....

If the free space is almost gone, it may not work.

RK16
You buy something like this: http://www.bixnet.co...bporenfor2.html
You remove your laptop's hard drive (not complicated at all; if you provide laptop's brand, and model, I can give you more info), put the hard drive inside the enclosure (couple of screws, couple of cables), connect the enclosure to any other computer, through included USB cable, and the other computer will see your hard drive.
Free some space, so the drive has at least 15% of a free space, put it back into your laptop.

[RK16]

Ok excellent, thank you. As I said it's a mate's laptop that I'm trying to fix so I'll tell him he needs to buy what you've suggested and if he decides to go ahead with that I'll no doubt be back on to you asking how I go about it!!

Thanks for all your help, much appreciated.

Have a good day

[Broni]

You too