Missing or corrupt file

[Steve McNamara]

Computer boots but wont load WinXP. Get the following message:
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.

If I did a WinXP reinstall without formatting would it keep my pic and music
files ?

Any help appreciated

Steve

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Steve,

If you do a repair installation, your files should be safe, read:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

What you have is registry damage, there is a shorter way of fixing it:

How to Recover from a Corrupted Registry [Q307545]
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307545

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[Alex Nichol]

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.

If I did a WinXP reinstall without formatting would it keep my pic and music
files ?

Yes - but it is not needed is you have a 'proper' XP CD to hand, or can
borrow one.

That indicates that there is corruption of the boot.ini file: That
tells the boot where to look for windows components, and it is looking
in the wrong place. Hal.dll just happens to be the first file 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.
Give:
ATTRIB -H -R -S C:\Boot.ini
DEL C:\Boot.ini
(thus deleting the old one)
BootCfg /Rebuild