hal.dll corrupted and/or missing.

RPGC Assistance Forums Technical Support Forum
1

Alrighty. So, the other day (Monday), when I got home and turned on my Laptop, I was greeted with a wonderful message about how Windows couldn’t start because a file named “hal.dll” found in my system32 folder was either corrupted or missing. I was able to fix this problem on Monday by repairing the Windows installation with the Windows XP Service Pack 2 CD. I was able to successful restore my Laptop back to 90% of what it use to be (a lot of broken programs).

Now, today (Tuesday), after trying to play Sacred 1, I noticed there was no sound. I rebooted the Laptop to be greeted again with that wonderful message. Again, I repaired the Windows installation.

So, does anyone here have any personal experience with this problem? And another thing, there was a power outage Monday morning, but my Laptop is connected to a surge protector. Even my brother’s desktop is connected to that surge protector (but he’s on Vista).

So I ask, has this happened to anyone else? I’m kind of afraid to turn off/restart the computer again. Anybody know of a way to prevent this from happening again?

2

While I never dealt with this firsthand and pray my PC never encounters this problem given how the HAL is kinda vital for OS stability, I did find some info about your issue…

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

See if it helps?

3

I tried everything and them some. Nothing seems to work… These are basically the methods I used:

Method 0 (only one that works, but for a limited time):
The first thing I did was look around for my “Windows XP Home Edition SP2” CD. What I did as follows:

  1. Pressed [ESC] on startup to boot with the CD first.
  2. Let the CD load up all that crap and then pressed [ENTER] to check the Windows installation.
  3. [F8] to agree to the terms.
  4. [R] to repair.
  5. All done, Windows starts up fine at 90% capacity (a lot of programs were fragmented)

Method 1:

Attrib -H -R -S C:\Boot.ini
DEL C:\Boot.ini
BootCfg /rebuild
Fixboot

This method doesn’t work because my computer doesn’t seem to recognize the parameter “Attrib.” If it counts for anything, I’m stuck in the “C:\Windows” directory.

Method 2:

BootCf /rebuild
Y
“Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition”
/fastdetect

As a work around for Method 1. That really didn’t do anything. Rather, this seemed to just give me multiple boot choices that all lead to the “hall.dll” error again (probably if it works again, I’ll need to ask you guys about how to reset that back to what it was).

Method 3:

expand D:\i386\hal.dl_ C:\windows\system32\hal.dll

I got the message, “Could not create file hal.dll.” So, knowing that didn’t work, I’ll use a work around…

Method 4:

copy hal.dl_ C:\Windows\system32
rename hal.dl_ hal.dll

Thinking that would work, it didn’t. I’m able to load the OS loading screen (Windows XP logo in a black screen with 3 blue bars moving from right to left) just to let the screen flicker and then freeze. Tried it a bunch of times, always at about 3 seconds into the loading. Yeah, it got further, but useless whatsoever.

Method 5:
Basically, a combination of what I did first and Method 4. After repairing the OS, I searched for “hal.dll.” It only came up with a few results, the “system32” folder was not one of them. I noticed they were all 103 kb, so I figured, “hey, they’re all the same.” So I copied one into the system32 folder and went to bed.

That brings us to today. It hung on the Windows loading screen. It seems as though the “hal.dll” on my Windows XP SP2 CD isn’t functioning correctly. Also, after repairing again, I noticed that there was a 136kb hal.dll file in the system32 folder. However, the only thing I’ve done from when I repaired my installation to now is looking up information on the web (using FireFox 3.0.5). I kept a window open in the system32 folder to constantly check what happens. Apparently, after repairing the installation, Windows was downloading some sort of an update. After watching some television and eating, I went back to check on my “hal.dll” file. It was gone! As of right now, I’m downloading the SP3 update again, hopefully I can update and restore the file without needing to repair the OS everytime I want to start up the laptop.

All…I really want to do at this moment is be able to use Microsoft Word to do some work, but I can’t even install it without needing to repair XP each time which pretty much renders the installation useless.

I’m going to go cry now… :bowser:

4

(I apologize for the multiple posts, just wanted to keep it a little more organized and “bumped.”)

Aside from the initial cause of the missing/corrupted file “hal.dll,” the secondary cause for it to continually disappear may have been due to the SP2 Windows Update. Although, not a confirmed cause, immediately after repairing the Windows OS (SP2), I unplugged the ethernet cable and manually updated to SP3 (.exe file). Restarting the computer after that proved successful. The 132 kb “hal.dll” remained in the “system32” folder and Windows no longer hung at the loading screen.

However, due to the initial repair of this file, a majority of my files were too fragmented (mainly the programs). Even though the best way to repair a missing/corrupted “hal.dll” on a Windows XP system is to immediately repair and update to the latest service pack (SP3), resuming my daily work on this laptop proved to be more difficult. If anything, repairing gives me a chance to transfer whatever is important to me.

Though there’s a “fix,” the degree of damage to a missing/corrupted “hal.dll” and a repaired XP OS, I decided to reformat the hard drive. That is all…