Missing or corrupt hal.dll on Windows XP

[luisr]

I just searched for this topic and found a few old threads. They are so old the board won't let me reply.

I am trying to help a friend of mine with a problem in an old computer she has. She is getting missing or corrupt hal.dll file and can't boot the computer. I got her to get to the recovery console and try the expand command (as per this Microsoft and this About.com article) used to recover the hal.dll file from the original Windows XP cd but she is getting access denied when doing so. All instructions I have found so far mention to enter the administrator password when prompted but she is not getting prompted for one. I guess this has to do with the access denied error.

The most difficult part about this is that I am not able to be physically at the computer because we live far from each other and we are going through this using webcams to guide her and be able to see what is going on. Nobody close to her is tech-savvy enough to try this for her.

We tried reinstalling Windows but her CD is an upgrade version. The old version she has is Windows 98 or ME from the Compaq recovery CD and not an original Windows installation CD. The setup program won't allow to reinstall because she doesn't have a valid previous version of Windows. When she did the original XP installation it was over the installed and working Windows version that came in the Compaq CD and this old installation is no longer there.

Any suggestions?

[glc]

She needs to do a repair reinstall. This can be done with an upgrade CD no problem.


http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=151522

[tibs]

Im having the same issue but the repair option isnt available.....is there another way to fix this?

[glc]

As stated in the original post:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477

[Mrstl89]

you could possibly restore this file manually using the repair option of the xp cd. If she doesn't have a cd than tell her to borrow one from someone. boot from the cd and enter into the recovery console after that use the expand command to move the d:\i386\hal.dl_ to your system32 folder on your hardrive. Good luck let me know how it goes.

[Mrstl89]

wait totally disregard my previous post i realize your issue is the access denied. It seems that this is a security setting that only can be change with a working system. So option B is to actually boot from the disk and choose the install option it should install system files on top of the old which would in turn reinstall the hal.dll. give it a try.

[glc]

I just had a missing hal.dll on my stepdaughter's computer tonight. The hard drive was bad. Failed SeaTools diagnostics.