superowl

The current hard drive appears to be a 160 GB SATA drive The current hard drive appears to be a 160 GB SATA drive. I would like to replace it with a 500 GB SATA drive (Western Digital)

Hi, My PC stops before windows XP starts. The black screen says "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 have tried numerous things but to no avail. No recovery disks work because the fault is before the CD is able to take control. It is a DELL PC and they weren't much use. My main priority is to rescue the data. If I buy a new internal hard drive and swop the present one for the new one, then set-up the Windows XP system on the new hard drive, Could I then connect the original hard drive and transfer all the data etc. Advice would be most appreciated.

Hi, I'm new here, so please excuse me but I'm lost already.:confused: I am self taught from books and dabbling over the years.:) But a bit out of touch as things have moved on since I last had problems.:(