I have a question about Making Sure the Correct HAL is Installed:

I am getting "Windows could not start because the hal.dll file is missing or corrupt" with Windows XP Home I can't fix this because Windows will not start again from the CD. I expected it to try to install with the XP CD in my CD tray I can get to safe mode using F8 but then none of the options work and I just get the error message again. I seem to be in a loop with this with no way out What's the XP route for formatting the disk and starting again???

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This particular link doesn't really address your issues. Your problem is that the HAL files are damaged or not referenced correctly. This can happen for many reasons. To boot from your CD you must enter the BIOS setup screen when you computer boots (your computer or motherboard manual should tell you how) and specify to boot from the CD ROM first. Once you can boot from the CD, you can choose the repair option. If the repair option doesn't fix the problem, most of the time you will have to reinstall windows. Unless you have stored your files and data on a separate drive or partition you could lose them. Good Luck! C K


On Sunday, December 22, 2002 at 4:10 am, John Dean wrote:
>I have a question about Making
>Sure the Correct HAL is Installed:

>
>I am getting "Windows could not start because the hal.dll file is missing or corrupt"
>with Windows XP Home
>
>I can't fix this because Windows will not start again from the CD. I expected it
>to try to install with the XP CD in my CD tray
>
>I can get to safe mode using F8 but then none of the options work and I just get
>the error message again.
>
>I seem to be in a loop with this with no way out
>
>What's the XP route for formatting the disk and starting again???
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Thanks. I ended up with a reinstall of Windows! All data lost....


On Sunday, December 22, 2002 at 10:47 am, C K wrote:
>This particular link doesn't really address your issues. Your problem is that the
>HAL files are damaged or not referenced correctly. This can happen for many reasons.
> To boot from your CD you must enter the BIOS setup screen when you computer boots
>(your computer or motherboard manual should tell you how) and specify to boot from
>the CD ROM first. Once you can boot from the CD, you can choose the repair option.
> If the repair option doesn't fix the problem, most of the time you will have to
>reinstall windows. Unless you have stored your files and data on a separate drive
>or partition you could lose them. Good Luck! C K
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

This same thing happened to me.  I solved it by putting my WinXP CD in the CD drive 
and typing the following: 

extract d:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll

Windows XP booted right up!






On Sunday, December 22, 2002 at 11:35 am, john dean wrote:
>Thanks. I ended up with a reinstall of Windows!
>
>All data lost....
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

You may want to check your BIOS and make sure the right boot order is set. I got this message when I changed the BIOS to boot from CDROM first, then next in the lineup was HDD1. I changed it to HDD0 and it worked fine after that. Scott Getter scottgetter@yahoo.com


On Sunday, December 22, 2002 at 4:10 am, John Dean wrote:
>I have a question about Making
>Sure the Correct HAL is Installed:

>
>I am getting "Windows could not start because the hal.dll file is missing or corrupt"
>with Windows XP Home
>
>I can't fix this because Windows will not start again from the CD. I expected it
>to try to install with the XP CD in my CD tray
>
>I can get to safe mode using F8 but then none of the options work and I just get
>the error message again.
>
>I seem to be in a loop with this with no way out
>
>What's the XP route for formatting the disk and starting again???
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I had a similar problem, and replacing hal.dll and hal.ini didn't fix it. I also 
had trouble installing and repairing xp with the cd, I kept getting read errors on 
drivers.cab and n*.* files during installation.
I had just added some new hardware to my computer, a water cooling rig, when it all 
started. The cpu/system temperatures were all below 50 degrees celcius, and not overclocked, 
so overheating wasn't the problem.

The problem was my 300W power source, it couldn't handle the load of all the devices, 
so when the hard drive and cdrom were running at the same time they would not get 
enough power and failed to read/write.

The solution was buying a $80 600W power supply that can deliver more than 30 amps 
to the 12v lines. I also bought molex to 3-pin-fan adapters so I could avoid running 
so much power through the motherboard, and connect the fans directly to the psu.
The alternative was to remove power hungry devices or buy another relatively cheap 
"dedicated 12 volt" power source, which would then give me two seperate sources of 
power inside my computer.

I have a multi-boot setup, two partitions on my 200GB hard drive.
My second partition will still not hold winxp, it got badly corrupted I bet, so I'll 
have to reformat that after recovering files from it.

In your bios screen, if you have a PC Health Status option that shows cpu temperature 
and volts, look at the voltages. Are they lower than they are supposed to be, or 
do they fluctuate by more than .1 every second? With my 300W psu, the 12v was below 
11.9, now with 600W it's between 12.09 and 12.03v, and the other voltages do not 
fluctuate at all.

You could temporarily remove any unnecessary pci devices, >extra< hard drives or 
dvd/cd rom drive, or case fans. If that helps than one of those devices may be damaged 
or your power source can't handle them.

Your WinXP disc should have options for erasing before installing.

If the power source isn't the problem than here are other possible causes, in order 
from most likely to least likely: hard drive, ram, motherboard, cpu or possibly video 
card.

An easy thing to check are your sticks of ram (if you have two, remove one, alternate 
which slots the sticks are in, turn off "fast post" in the bios, etc.), and moving 
the hard drive to another computer, to see if it works there. Check for leaking/bulging 
capacitors on the motherboard, that's a sign of a physical defect and you should 
replace the motherboard if they are.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I have had this problem a couple of times. How can I stop this from happening again? Seems as though any time I put anything in my DVD drive this happens. I haven't changed anything (although Windows is updating automatically). Any ideas?! Thanks


On Thursday, September 4, 2003 at 9:26 pm, Mark W. Mumma wrote:
>
>This same thing happened to me. I solved it by putting my WinXP CD in the CD drive
>and typing the following:
>
>extract d:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll
>
>Windows XP booted right up!
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I've read that this has to do with boot.ini, etc. (See http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000490.htm) I discovered that if I have a USB drive plugged in when I'm booting up, I get this error. When I unplug it, the problem disappears. So... if you get this error, the solution may be as simple as unplugging any USB jump drive, iPod, or USB hard drive that you have plugged in.

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