WinXP Won't Boot - Missing hal.dll file

Thanks for the quick response.  I've actually already looked at this site.  Two problems:

1)  I can't boot to Windows, so I can't edit boot.ini as suggested.  I would have to edit it from DOS.  XP doesn't seem to provide a DOS editor, at least not one that I've found yet.

2)  As I stated in my original message, I tried to do the expand of hal.dl_, but I get "Access Denied".

Can you help me around these 2 issues?

can you login to safe mode

do you boot menu option once you reboot and pressing F8

did you try recovery console


Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;314058&

 http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

How to Recover from a Corrupted Registry That Prevents Windows XP from Starting
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;307545

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341

Yes, I tried to boot to safe mode.  Windows doesn't come up.  I get the missing hal.dll error.

Yes, I've tried booting from CD and running the recovery console  I get to the c-drive I'm actually at the c: prompt, not c:\Windows.  I tried to expand hal.dll from the CD, but I keep getting "Access Denied".

check this

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314477

Yes, I saw this article and tried it last night.

Method 1- Windows won't boot, so I can't edit boot.ini file in XP.

Method 2 - When I try bootcfg /list I get "there are currently no boot entries available to display".

Method 3 - I can't do the expand because I get "Access Denied".

Method 4 - Chkdsk says that the volume appears to be in good condition.

If for some reason or other your system does not have this editor in the specified location, you could try downloading this free DOS editor and putting it on your boot floppy, and from there copy to the C: drive:

http://www.camcomp.com/users/jwalker/ed_dwn.htm

I found an old DOS 6.2 boot disk which has edit.com.  Now I have a stupid question (my dos is pretty rusty).  I go to a: and type "edit c:boot.ini" and I get 'command not recognized'????  I'm obviously doing something wrong here.

No, you have to open Edit.com just by typing that at the prompt.  Then, if I remember correctly, you will need to type Alt + F to open the File menu, cursor down to the Open item, then type in the path to boot.ini, do your editing, save by Alt + F followed by cursor down to Save.  Exit by Alt + F and then cursor down to exit. You may be better off by first copying edit.com to your C: drive.  And you need to turn off the read only and system and hidden attributes of boot.ini first by:

attrib -h -r -s boot.ini

I copied edit.com from a: to c:, so it is now in the c: root.  I also turned off the archive attribute on edit.com

At c:\> I typed "edit.com".  I still get that the command is not recognized.  Just for grins I also tried typing "edit".  What am I doing wrong (it must be something stupid)????

I wonder if it is an invalid edit.com file, perhaps wrong version of DOS.  Have you tried copying the version in the Windows\System32 folder to the root?  Or else, referencing it in a format such as this:

c:\windows\system32\edit.com  

My c:\windows folder is AWOL.  I tried expanding edit.co_ from the CD, but it says "unable to create file edit.com".

Well, unfortunately, I am going to have to leave now (a computer system repair job), and so I won't be able to give any more help for several hours.  Hopefully, other experts will jump in before then and try solving your problem.

Is your drive formated ntfs? if so, the dos disk won't see it
try an in place upgrade of your install
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_install.htm

Ah, good point, steven.  I keep forgetting about the installation of XP on an NTFS partition, since mine is on FAT32.  I was wondering what this comment from CDL2 meant:

>My c:\windows folder is AWOL.

And if his XP is installed on NTFS, that would explain it.  But what would cause the "Access denied" message he gets in Recovery Console?

And, as an aside, stevenlewis, it's true, isn't it, that a Windows XP installation on a partition using NTFS can access another partition that was formatted with FAT32?  Whatever the answer is to that question, can you furnish a link corroborating it?

>>it's true, isn't it, that a Windows XP installation on a partition using NTFS can access another partition that was formatted with FAT32
Yes Lee, XP can read ntfs or fat32 (or fat16 and fat12 for that matter)
I have XP on my desktop, with my c: drive formatted ntfs and my d: formatted fat32
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prkc_fil_hclr.asp
Now if dual booting with 9x/me, then your c: has to be fat32 (they can't read ntfs directly, but can over a network)

also Lee, if you format (or convert your drive to ntfs) then on the occasional bad shut down, chkdsk won't have to run (ntfs is a more robust file system, and less prone to corruption)

Well, since I multi-boot Windows 98SE, Windows ME, and Windows XP all on the same computer, and I wanted them all to be visible to each other, I chose FAT32. I was also advised by the almighty CrazyOne that FAT32 hard disk recovery is generally less troublesome and complicated than NTFS.

>>I was also advised by the almighty CrazyOne that FAT32 hard disk recovery is generally less troublesome and complicated than NTFS.
his is absolutely true (youcan access the drive from a w98 boot disk, and there is no one boot disk for XP (you can create a boot disk, but it still needs to access files on the hard drive to work, if it can't you will get messages as like the one we are dealing with here)
CDL, hope you don't mind the extra email (this is sort of on topic) :-)

The drive is NTFS.  Since I got to dos by booting from CD I could see other files on the drive, but I couldn't see the \windows directory.  I don't know if it got clobbered at some point when I was trying to fix the missing dll or what.

I'm only running 1 OS, no dual boot.  This is a relatively new machine, just a few months old, and I was trying to move past NT and 2K, although right now I'm not thrilled with that decision.

I finally gave up and re-installed XP.  Fortunately, I'm pretty finatical about keeping my data separate from my apps, so my data is all on separate partitions and seems to be in tact.  I'm now going through the agony of re-installing all the drivers and applications and trying to get everything configured back the way it was.

I'd still like to hear if someone has a simpler resolution to this.  I spent about 12 hours searching around on the web and it seems to be a common problem.  What's worse, people seem to have it happen repeatedly.  So if there's a better answer than re-installing XP I'd like to know about it.  Like how do I get around the "access denied", what happened to the \windows directory, and why couldn't I do a repair install or an in place upgrade?

wish we could have  been more help
thanks for the points!

I've still been looking into this as it seems many people have it as a recurring problem.  I'd really like to know what causes it so I can fix what is causing the problem, instead of facing the prospect of frequently having to re-install my system.

Anyway, for anyone else interested I found this site -  http://www.nocrash.com/ncbbs/msgs/162.shtml and reading through it it is beginning to look like maybe it has something to do with PowerQuests PartitionMagic and/or DriveMagic.  It even points to information on the PowerQuest site
http://www.powerquest.com/support/primus/id3659.cfm, although this is still just fixing the symptom, not the cause.  Is the problem with the PowerQuest software, or is XP just unhappy about partitions?  Who knows.

Just thought I'd share.  There are messages out there going back for a couple years.  It would be nice if someone could figure out what's causing all this aggravation and rework.

P.S.  Yes, I did use PartitionMagic to partition my hard drive!  Although it was done several months ago and had been running fine until the crash a couple days ago.

FYI for anyone researching a similar problem -- I had to do a full re-install of XP to deal with the hal.dll problem.  Things worked fine for a couple weeks and the machine started having problems again.  I ran disk tools to test the integrity of the HDD and it found LOTS of bad sectors, so it appears to be a hardware problem.  I'm replacing the HDD.  I'm still puzzled as to why a brand new machine would have 2 new, brand-name HDD's go bad in a period of about 4 months.

I have a problem that looks just like this:
when i boot up winXP pro on my computer (The partition is in FAT32) then it says that it is missing hal.dll, but if i use my bootable winXP cd (but i do not push the required button to start the setup os it continues to start from the harddisk) then there's no problem at all? How does this happen?
grz,
jeroen

I just received a new HDD (this is #3).  As part of the WinXP install I did the long format of the HDD.  When it finished formatting I got the missing hal.dll error again.  The company is now sending a new motherboard, CPU, and CPU fan.  I have seen other message traffic that the hal.dll error does indicate a hardware problem, but I haven't seen anything that anyone really knows what causes this problem.

As a recap, this is a new machine (received in Sep) and the first HDD failed within 2 weeks.  The 2nd HDD failed within 3 months, and the 3rd one never successfully made it through the WinXP installation.  I really don't think the HDD is the problem, I think it's a vicitm.  But I haven't figured out, a victim of what?

Hello all, this is my first post.
CDL2, do you mind if join you here? I have the same error on my XP Pro notebook (Compaq Presario, 2.4/512/60)

I was hoping to dual boot my XP system with Linux. I ran *Partition Magic* and created a 10GB partition. Went for the install and immediately got some weird errors during SuSE install. Aborted the install, rebooted, and got the HAL.DLL error.

Like you I a have a current backup, however i WANT to fix this first, then i'll zero-out my disk. (last laughs and all..).

I follow up on the above leads and get back to all of you. thanks for all the information so far.

Well,
Here's what I"ve unsuccessfully tried so far..

1. Boot Options
- F8 at boot> "Last Known Good Configuration"
- ran chksdk  (good shape, no change)

2. Booted in Recovery Console, using XP install CD
-ran the Fixboot utility, restarted
-I also learned that Recovery Console has it's own limited command set which does not include "edit". See MS Knowledge Base Article 307654, Install and Use Recovery Console in XP.
-ran the Fixboot utility (no change)
-ran the Fixmbr utility, got this warning:
***Caution***
This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record.
FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed.
This could cause all the partitions on the current hard disk to become inaccessible.
If you are not having problems accessing your drive do not continue.
Are you sure you want to write a new MBR?
*******
I think I'll wait til later on this one.

3. Installed parallel XP install (per powequest advice)
I can run nearly all my applications and access all data, but lots of system settings are changed and/or unavailable, such as display, wireless, Firewire, etc. ( I can maybe fix with the Compaq CAB files on Root.) This is not a fix, but it would allow me to salvage files, and I can run Partition Magic utilities..

From the new install (C:\x\system)
-System Restore- can't access pre-error restore points from program
-copied HAL file, restarted (no change)
-ran PowerQuest > PartitionInfo (no errors found)
-ran MSConfig > Boot.ini
--looked ok, both system recognized
--tried a few options (boot order, default boot, etc) no help.
--ran "Check all Boot Paths", Error Returned>

"It appears that the following line in the BOOT.INI file does not refer to a valid operating system: "my_original_disk_partition\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Pro"  Would I like to remove it from the BOOT.INI file?

This is consistant with the FIXMBR error.

4. Desperate attempts:
-Norton System Works -System Works Wouldn't start.
-Digging into Hidden System files on Root.
C:\System Volume Information\_restore
looks like i found the restore points. I just don't know how to open them. Checked around, doesn't look like i'll be able to use these unless I boot into the system i can't boot into.

Booting back into Recovery Console to try Fixmbr, which is more likely to destroy me system than fix the problem. not looking good. Here it goes.....

Writing new master boot record on physical drive
\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0.
The new mbr has been written.

rebooted and same error.

One last thing to try is the Partition Magic utility, I'll try it tomorrow.

AerinsDad,

You are welcome to join this discussion.  I installed a new motherboard, CPU, and CPU fan last week-end.  I've been running okay for a week now, but I won't be convinced that my problem is fixed until it runs okay for a couple of months.  

Based on my experience with this so far I'm inclined to think that the missing hal.dll error does point to a hardware problem.  I'd still like to know if there is a definitive answer to this issue.

Good Luck!

Just a note for this question. I saw this same error today. It was a power issue.  If you computer has too many device connected than the hard drive might not get enough power and display this error or other similiar errors.

I've wondered about power.  If it is power I think it's more likely to be a faulty power supply as opposed to too little power.  I have a 300W power supply in the machine that I think it's more than adequate for the number of devices.  The other possibilty might be the UPS.  I suppose it could be faulty.

I did replace 1 of the 4 memory simms a few weeks ago.  I'm hoping maybe that was the problem.  Time will tell.

windows xp-pro boots to a black screen and stops,

I have this Hal.dll problem and found this link (among others), it goes on about the number of partitions in the boot.ini file which is linked to the hal.dll, it may help to clarify a few things:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm

Had exactly the same problem of missing or corrupt hal.dll after uninstalling one piece of troublesome software.

Found 2 things. The boot.ini file had been modified, so multi(0) was some thing else in both sections. Then that there was an extra partition showing up. Removed this and the computer recovered.

Found the partition after giving up hope and starting to reinstall XP. After agreeing to reinstall it asked which partition to use, showing the rogue one too. The delete option did the trick.

Best of luck

there are 7 hal.dll files onthe installation disk, when windows is installing the install routine interogates the hardware and copies then remanes the files listed below ( to Hal.dll) according to the hardware interogation results:

Computer Description in Device Manager                           HAL File Copied
ACPI Multiprocessor PC                                          Halmacpi.dll
ACPI Uniprocessor PC                                                          Halaacpi.dll
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC          Halacpi.dll
MPS Multiprocessor PC                                          Halmps.dll
MPS Uniprocessor PC                                                          Halapic.dll
Standard PC                                                          Hal.dll
Compaq SystemPro Multiprocessor or 100% Compatible    Halsp.dll

after the POST passes sucessfully, NTLDR is loaded which then loads (among others) the Hal.dll

You cannot just copy a Hal.dll file from another computer it may be the wrong type.

If You have XPSP1 installed u ay have to load the newer version of the file (if any)

The Boot.ini file must match the number of partitions on the drive otherwise the machine will not boot.

hope this clarifies a few things

Hello,
Can certainly sympathize and still need help with the hal.dll missing or corrupted error; up and running currently but have done 3 full recoverys in 4 months.

On this computer, the hal.dll error began after upgrading to windows xp SP-2 and deleting the SP2 partition in with Partition Magic and copying an SP1 backup partition in it's place.

I have found webpages where the same problem had occured some time earlier with computers that had done Partition Magic based "downgrades" to the OS, replacing windows NT with windows 98SE.

Also have read some advice about making sure that older operating systems are installed before new operating systems on multiple boot systems.

Had used Partition Magic to delete the primary partition ( C ) many times for years in the past with 100% success, until the downgrade from windows SP2 to SP1 using Partition Magic.

Since then (about 4 months, when SP2 was released & downgrade to SP1), running any Partition Magic activities, to Windows XP partitions randomly, (more often than not) results in data loss and corruption of any Windows XP partitions on all physical drives, whether they were the partitions being edited or not. Often the data loss is more than one gig. When booting to one of the "reduced data area partitions", the hal.dll error occurs.

I think the comment (probably 2 entries above this one) about editing the boot.ini, deleting the entry about the "extra" partition could be an answer but I am uncertain which would be the extra and have been reluctant to go ahead and try it.

As I said, used Partition Magic 8.0 for years, and frequently on many systems with 100% success and no longer being able to trust it has made maintaince quite difficult.

I am hoping that the comments I've added might trigger someone more knowledgable's understanding of the problem who could help me end this dilemma for me and others.
Thanks!

Wow!

I just had the same problem with my multiboot system (98SE/Win2Kpro/XPpro) and nothing I tried corrected the problem, thank God for Acronis archive copies! Was able to recover with minimal hassel but I'd like to find out myself what caused this as it appears so do all of you. Any other thoughts on this puzzling issue? I did notice that after updating to SP2 that the Boot INI file changed. It added in  /NoExecute=OptIn on the end of the XP entry where it wasn't before, any ideas?



[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=C:\
[operating systems]
C:\="Microsoft Windows 98SE"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Safe Mode" /fastdetect /safeboot:minimal

C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Recovery Console" /cmdcons

bartwbeye, the new option in the Boot.ini file is described here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;875352
A detailed description of the Data Execution Prevention (DEP) feature in Windows

Do you know anything about the hal.dll missing or corrupted error? Seems like no one knows for sure what the problem is. What is a hal.dll file anyway, what does it do, and why does not having it cause such a serious issue with XP and 2K?

Go to this page and click on the letter H.  At the top of the page you will be taken to are some good articles about Hal.dll.  By the way, you really should start your own question, and not "piggyback" on an already answered question.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm

I already do/did have my own question active (see below) with little to no success in fixing my problem. I just wanted to do some additional research to find out why and what happened to my beloved computer that has always been so reliable. Sorry to "piggyback" on an already answered question, I thought I might get some answers this way, I was just looking for some additional resources and thought this may be a good way.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/WinXP/Q_21239000.html#12800451

OK Just to revive this old chestnut, I am having the same issue as CDL2 I get the missing HAL.dll file, now what it looks like to me is when I boot to recovery console I get the access denied and I am dropped to the root C: so I take the drive out plug it into another system and run a full virus scan just to make sure I have no viruses I do so I remove the viruses! I then check my boot.ini all looks good I then check my c:\windows\system32 (NO SYSTEM32 Folder) so I do a search for hal.dll and I find it in c:\windows\sp so I have a look and I find that SP folder has everything that system32 folder should have so I rename it system32. I then plug the drive back into the original system where on boot up I get the same error I then take the drive out check it on another PC to find the SYSTEM32 Folder has been renamed again to SP...


Any Ideas would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Sorry Lee, I just thought if I was to piggy back on it would save alot of time going over the same ground, but I will make a new post and thanks for responding so quick.

Cheers

Jason