Loss of hal.dll link

[BR]

On previously installed and functioning XP pro
installation, now get a hal.dll missing message upon boot
up. Have copied new hal.dll from XP CD - no joy. Then
tried a repair installation - also no joy. Complete new
installation evidently may require an overwrite of
partition and loss of all content and settings. Anyone
had this misfortune and identified a way to repair?
Thanks
br

 

[yo]

use 98 startup disk and delete all partitions... ALL reboot to your xp cd

 

[Alex Nichol]

On previously installed and functioning XP pro
installation, now get a hal.dll missing message upon boot
up. Have copied new hal.dll from XP CD - no joy. Then
tried a repair installation - also no joy.

By now you may have damaged it beyond simple repair. The file called
hal.dll may not be the right one for your machine, and was not relevant
anyway,
That message is rather misleading. It happens because the boot.ini file
that tells the boot where to look for 'Windows' is damaged, so it is
looking for files in the wrong place - hal.dll just happens to be the
first one it looks for.

Set the BIOS to boot CD before Hard Disk. Boot the XP CD and, instead
of Setup, take the immediate R for Repair. Assume any password
requested is blank, and TAB over.

Use
Attrib -H -R -S C:\boot,ini
DEL C:\boot.ini
to delete the bad one
BootCfg /Rebuild

to search for Windows installations and make a new one. And hope the
hal is correct: if not you will need to do a repair reinstall to get it
right