Hi,

When I try to start my computer, I get the following message:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows Root>\system32\hal.dll. Please re-install a copy of the above file."

I've had this problem before and I managed to fix it by repairing Windows somehow but I can't remember how I did it. Ever since, I've been sure to keep a backup of the hal.dll file every week just in case it happened again.

I've tried going into Windows recovery and replacing the file, but I was not able to do it. First I got a message saying access denied, then I tried the ATTRIB [FILENAME] -R command but I got a message saying 'The file could not be opened'.

Please could someone suggest how I can fix the problem?

Thanks,
Joe

if you have a win xp disk, instert it into your cd rom drive, boot from it (by changing boot sequence in BIOS to cd rom first) info here: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

this should replace ALL the windows files but it wont touch your program files

Thanks Mike, it's working fine now.

ok, thanks for letting us know
Please come back if you need any help in the future