Missing .dll problem on XP PC

[superowl]

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.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Superowl,

You could perform a windows repair perhaps, it depends on what disks you do have though, and how the original Windows installation was set up, Dell have done a few different ways of providing recovery options.

If you can tell us everything you know about the PC, model number and series name etc we may be able to help further.

However your other suggestion of installing a new hard drive, installing Windows to it, then obtaining your data from the old hard drive is quite easy to do. All we need to know to help with that is the drive type, is it IDE or SATA?

Nev.

[superowl]

The current hard drive appears to be a 160 GB SATA drive

 

Hi Superowl,

You could perform a windows repair perhaps, it depends on what disks you do have though, and how the original Windows installation was set up, Dell have done a few different ways of providing recovery options.

If you can tell us everything you know about the PC, model number and series name etc we may be able to help further.

However your other suggestion of installing a new hard drive, installing Windows to it, then obtaining your data from the old hard drive is quite easy to do. All we need to know to help with that is the drive type, is it IDE or SATA?

Nev.

 

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)

[Plastic Nev]

Should be no problem with that. Just remove the old hard drive, fit the new one in its place. If there is room inside the box, the old drive can then be fitted next to it later.

 

Install Windows to the new drive first, (you may have to obtain a new copy of Windows, a lot depends on the type of disks you already have, so we need to know to advise on that)

 

Once you have a working operating system, install the old hard drive. If no room inside, you can obtain a caddy to then connect it to a USB port as an external drive.

[Jelly Bean]

Did you check boot order in BIOS and set CD rom to first boot then hard drive to second?

 

Did you load defaults in BIOS before setting the boot priority?

 

This should help:

 

Error message: "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem"

[RandyL]

You might want to read this Dell suport article.