Fixed – Error: hal.dll is missing
August 2, 2009 | Computer, Personal
After I reformat my laptop and install all necessary software, I thought everything would be ok. But I encountered another problem. After reboot, there is an error message: Error Message: Cannot Find \Windows\System32\hal.dll is missing or corrupt, please re-install. For those who have encountered this error, here are some of the things I have done to fix it.
Thinking that hal.dll is really missing or corrupted, I replaced it with the hal.dll from the installation CD. To do this:
- Insert Windows installation CD.
- Reboot from CD and press any key when prompted to continue.
- On the Microsoft Setup press R to open the recovery console.
- Enter Admin password
- On the command prompt type: expand E:\i386\hal.dl_ C:\windows\system32\hal.dll
(E as the drive letter for CD-ROM and C for the windows partition)
- After the process type EXIT and reboot
After doing this, it hasn’t solved my problem. So, it could be that the boot.ini is causing the problem. This is because I have two Operation Systems running on my laptop (Dell Media Direct and Windows XP Home). This is what I did to rebuild the Windows boot.ini.
- Boot from CD and open the recovery console
- On the command prompt, type bootcfg /rebuild
- After the process, you will be prompted for the identified Windows installed
- Press Y
- Enter load identifier: Microsoft Windows
- Enter OS load options: /fastdetect
- Exit
After this, my computer rebooted and everything works fine until I discovered that boot.ini tab is missing in msconfig. I would encounter an error if I would reboot it once again. So I created a boot.ini file. Here’s how to create boot.ini file.
- Right-click My Computer.
- On Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery
- Then click Edit
- A notepad will pop up. Enter the details:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows” /fastdetect
(You can change the partition number depending on your OS location)
- Then Save
After creating boot.ini file, it should be located on drive C: and boot.ini tab should be present on msconfig. After checking all of these, I am sure that my computer will work properly. I rebooted it and everything works just fine, until I checked on msconfig and boot.ini tab is missing again! I created a new boot.ini file using the process above. But every reboot, I noticed that boot.ini file is deleted.
I run an antivirus scan but it hasn’t found anything. I looked up on the Internet for solutions and I have found information about the Ask toolbar and IE8 incompatibilities. I uninstall Ask toolbar in Add/Remove programs and my laptop is now 100% working.
