Hi,

I'm getting the following message when my pc starts..

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

After seeing solutions for this on the web and trying them all I can't fix it still. THis is becasue the recovery console (or a repair install) will not detect my previous installation or ask me to logon.
I tried chkdsk /r as it suggests and it took an unusually long time and gave the result that it found and fixed some errors. Still not helped though.

Any Ideas?

PS: I'll explain how I got into this situation as it may help....
PC has been having some problems after some virus removal. I decided to clean out some things from the add/remove programs list. One of these was an SQL server installation.
After clearing out I went to to a repair install of xp with an SP3 slipstreamed disk.
Part way through it says there was an error and cant continue. It mentions it cant find SQL server. When it rboots, I have the problem mentioned above.

Here is what MS has to say about resolving this: Error message: "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem"

Yea, I know, I tried this allready. But it will only work if it can detect the previous installation.

So are you saying when you boot your XP CD, then enter R at the first opportunity to get to the Recovery Console, it won't allow you login because it doesn't see the XP install? If so, then it sounds like it's time to save your data and do a Clean Install then.

Try booting a Linux "Live" CD like Puppy Linux or one of the other bootable CD packages like EBCD, UBCD or best of all, UBCD4WIN. See if you can access the hard drive and your data that way.

See this post by Happyrck on GeeksToGo for Puppy Linux:
http://www.geekstogo.com/.....=findpost&p=1197721#entry1197721
Get the latest version available as the one he recommends is no longer easy to find.

These two are iso images you download then use your burner software to create the bootable CD from:
EBCD
Ultimate Boot CD

This one you have to build on your system and you need a Windows XP Home, Pro or MCE CD. Takes a bit of work to set it up but it's not difficult and when you boot it, you have Windows XP:
Ultimate Boot CD for Windows
How to build UBCD4WIN

Yeah, I was afraid of that.

I can see and read the files no problem, so it is just like something (that allows the installation to be detected) has become corrupt. I was hoping there would be some way to sort that.

fixmbr or fixboot wont help me?

I have not tried these for fear of it making my partition unreadable.

EDIT: I can see and read files when in recovery console, i.e. dir command shows all my files/folders, and i can read the boot.ini file.
I just put the disk in another PC as a slave, it says not formtted. Hmm

It could be a corrupted boot.ini as the MS website mentions. Worth looking at if you can boot to the Recovery Console, otherwise you will need one of the bootable CDs I described in my previous post. Any of them will allow you to look at files on the hard drive, specifically C:\boot.ini. It should look pretty much like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

It will probably be hidden with a S (System) and H (Hidden) attributes, so depending on which CD you chose, you may need to clear those attributes using

attrib -s -h boot.ini

Yeah, the boot.ini is fine. Fortunately I made a full backup recently so I'm just going to format and start again.

Still, I'm pretty suprised that running an XP repair install could f#@k up a hard drive like this.

Cheers

Depends on where it was when it died.

My guess if there is a problem with the slipstreamed CD. I know I've had problems with nLite CDs when I tried to do too many things with it, including slipstreaming all the updates on top of SP3, I often ended up with a partially installed sys stem that was not bootable.