Well that's what i thought. Anyway I'm in the process of formatting my hard drive and living with the fact that I've lost my programs. Ah well. I bought an external hard drive so I can back everything up and not have to worry about this happening again.

Cheers for all of the help guys. Top service as always.

I would not backup to an external drive. Last year i backed up 40 gigs of Mp3's amd 4 gigs of programs to a external drive. foolishly i loaned the drive to a friend who wanted to reformat his drive and reinstall windows. By the time i got the drive back the partition information was lost and any computer i stuck the drive in would not see the data. It seems he thought you could pull the USB plug out of the computer without shutting the usb port down. I am still in the process of using a data recovery software to try getting my files back. I knew i should have backed everything to dvd's but thought "what could go wrong just once". This won't happen again. The loss is not that great since i have all the cd's that i ripped the music from. It's just a PITA to redo 1500 CD's again. I should have all the programs also since i am weird about backups so i need to drag out all my old backup cd's and look thru them and see if i still have the programs. I usually will backup twice to be sure. I have had a CD peel the silver layer off ruining the cd( left out in the sun one day). I am very careful with my backup cd's and dvd's nowadays.

SRX660

Hello ,

I have 2 hard disks one loads with Win 98SE and another Win XP Pro. Yesterday I re-installed Win XP and I started getting the 'hal.dll missing' errors when I try to load the 98SE.

I checked the boot.ini however I'm not a techie and I'm unsure how to troubleshoot.

MSCONFIG ->'Check All Boot Paths' Option says that 'all BOOT.INI Lines appear to be correct'.

BOOT.INI Loaded from XP:
----------------------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="MS Windows 98 SE" /fastdetect
----------------------

More info:

- 1 disk - Win XP Pro - Default loader
- 1 disk - Win 98SE
- XP was re-installed and loads fine.
- 98 shows the 'hal.dll' corrupt/missing error after I select 98 from the boot screen.

Glad if you can provide me with some help on this.

10x in advance.

What does the boot.ini show in win 98. I ask this because it still acts like a problem there.

SRX660

The boot.ini looks fine. The problem is you have a missing or corrupt hardware abstraction layer file (hal.dll).

Windows 98 will install over itself very nicely and will ususally resolve this problem. You may have to start the installation using a startup disk...make sure to install to the same directory.

Hello Again,

Thanks for your suggestions.

I have an update:

I found a hal.dll online, I copied the file in the system32 folder, and that appeared to have solved THIS problem. After rebooting I got the next error which was:

- '<windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe is corrupt or missing'.

I found a copy of ntoskrnl.exe online and placed it in the same folder. Again after rebooting I got a new error:

- 'Load needed DLLs for kernel'

Checked out Microsoft http://support.microsoft.com/kb/164448/ and this KB says that the Hal.dll and Ntoskrnl.exe files are mismatched, which is most probaby my case.

Unfortunatley I was unable to follow the KB as it's for Win NT.

I'll most probably end up doing what 'wannabe1' suggested, but it looks like I'm soo close.

Any suggestions before I do the next move?



Thanks a lot!

hi it seems as if I'm having the same problems as Tob. I've done what he posted on the top in green but i'm still having the same problem which is <windows root>\system32\hal.dll. Is there something I'm not doing right? (after following the directions that was posted on the very top in green)

Hi guys,

Well I have exactly the same problem.

One of my RAM sticks went belly up .... memory fail, spots in a matrix on the screen.... then the dreaded <windows root>\system 32\hal.dll is missing.

Tried to do a repair ... failed when halfway
didn't want to format and lose everything.

Then realised I had D partition that I'd emptied all valuable contents onto CD a coupla months back, so I did a clean install on D, changed the bios and loaded my modem and here I am. 4 am start, back online by 7am.

Now how to restore hal to C drive so it's usable again with all my programs... nero's in there too. I ain't got nuthin on D ceptin windows and foxit.

I'm afraid that there will be an endless sequence of missing files...

bump

To whom it may help:


Do not try the above, as it will get you to the "Load needed DLLs for kernel" error, I just tried it today, same prob. But finally came with an "alternate" solution to Repair Install or "in-place uprgrade". It’s something like what tobyed did.
Since I was afraid of what doing a reapair install might have done to my programs, I installed XP on another partition (in the same computer) and then copied “hal.dll” and “ntoskrnl.exe” over to the damaged ‘system32’ folder. And it works perfectly as before now.

As tobyed posted: “HAL is an acronym for hardware abstraction layer. The hal.dll file is a Windows NT file that is used by windows when communicating with your computer's hardware. It enables hardware from different vendors to allow them to accept a common set of Windows commands. If it is missing Windows will not function.”

For what I understand, it is unique to each computer, depending on the hardware components it has. Thus I am pretty sure using a downloaded one will not work. (If I am wrong please correct me).

Thus, I’m not sure how the method:
“5. At the command prompt type: expand d:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll. (where d: is the drive letter of your CD and c:\windows is the location for your Windows installation folder.) If prompted for permission to overwrite an existing version of the hal.dll file select yes.
6. Once you have expanded the file type "exit" to exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer.”

...is to work, as the hal file would be a generic one. Does Windows reconfigure it when it restarts? Or, does the “expand” command configure it? Or does this method work at all? (It did not work for Tobyed)

If I would know how to program, I’d try to write one that would reconfigure the generic hal (and maybe ntoskrnl too?) file with the unique hardware components specifications of the computer it was being executed. Or maybe someone can (if you do, or it exists, please let me know! (maybe some credit?))

I am 90% + sure if tobyed would have copied “hal.dll” and “ntoskrnl.exe” from the re installation he did over to the old ‘system32’ folder it would have booted up fine. I am pretty sure they were there, he just did not find them. Otherwise, how could his Windows boot if the files were not there and the other ones (on damaged install) were corrupted.

That’s officially my first post here, in fact, any 'help' forum. Hope it may help someone. And if anyone can answer my questions, I would be very thankful!

God bless y’all,
-docarii

This post has been edited by docarii: Jul 27 2007, 10:55 PM

Hi. I need some help pretty bad. I am pretty litrate when it comes to computers.. but I have tried just about everything I can and nothing seems to want to work. I get the <windows root>\system32\hal.dll. error message saying that it is corrupt or missing to re-install. Well, I'm unable to go into safe mode to try a system restore because my operating system won't do anything. I even tried to go into safe mode with command prompt so I can pull up a system restore that way. I failed. It won't even load it up that way. I can't boot from the Windows XP disk either. I have ran out of options and am seeking help badly. Does anyone know how I can fix this? Any help would be appreciated. I have Windows XP Professional. Thank you so much. Oh and I was even going to try to get a startup disk, but I don't have any floppy disks lying around and I am unsure how to do that.

Everyone needs to start their own topic and stop replying to this one. It is very distracting for everyone when there are multiple problems from multiple people being posted. Makes it hard to know which comment is for who, which can lead to one of the people with the problem trying something that wasn't meant for them and they hose their computer.

Please leave this topic alone for help for tobyed only.

Thanks,
Fenor

This post has been edited by Fenor: Sep 26 2008, 02:22 PM

Im having the same problem , i havnt done anything about it yet though . if it helps , the last time my computer let me in i removed an app from the startup from msconfig , i believe it was called "APVXDWIN" ... im not entirely sure but i think it was related to Panda antivirus and was causing my computer to run very slowly . i dont want to screw up my computer either , but i do need to be able to access my original files . i tried doing a dual boot from BackTrack3 which i have on a external HDD but nothing successfuly .

Direct to: timmmm

Please start your own topic
Although your issue may seem similar there can be other factors that may need to be resolved.
By bumping on someone's topic especially one that is realistically over a year old. It makes it confusing for the tech to understand who they are helping. This can in turn cause the wrong support to be given and can cause instability or worse to happen to your system. Thank you for your cooperation.