when I boot the laptop, I get an error that the system32/hal.dll has been corrupt or is missing...how can I fix that if I don't have the Windows XP cd? Thanks!

If you have a laptop hard drive enclosure and another PC, do this: Install the hard drive from the problem computer into the enclosure. Boot up the other computer, connect the enclosure to that system, go to My Computer, double-click on the problem hard drive, navigate to \Windows\Driver Cache, double-click on driver.cab. If you get a Window called "Open with" or similar, download 7-Zip, IZarc, or WinZip and open the driver.cab file in that. Extract from that file hal.dll to the \Windows\System32 folder of the problem hard drive. Shut down, move the hard drive back to the other computer and boot up. Windows will reinstall your hardware upon bootup. If you don't have an enclosure, there's no way to fix this problem unless you have some way to access the files on the laptop's hard drive. WinSimple Software

sorry for the dumb question but...what does the hard drive enclosure look like?

I ran a hard drive test on BIOS and the quick test never passed 10%... would it be easier to just buy another hard drive? :) I just checked and a 120 GB is about 100 bucks...not bad..I have an HP Pavilion dv5139us... I just don't know if I would be able to save any files from the old to the new hd... :-\

Well your hard drive needs replacing if the quick test won't pass 10%. It appears to have some bad sectors. You can get hard drive enclosures for $20. Check out this one here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... In order to get your data off the old hard drive, you will need an enclosure. Do you have a recovery CD that may have came with the laptop? You will either need that or an XP CD from somewhere. There's really no way of getting this fixed unless you have either of them and an enclosure. You can order recovery discs from HP if you don't have them. You can get them from here: https://warp2.external.hp.com/driver/dr_country_select.asp?Product=419038-001&lang=en&cc=us WinSimple Software

before I purchase it...the photo of the enclosure says "2.5" hard drive"...is an enclosure the same as an external hard drive?? :-| I ordered a new hard drive and will be ordering the recovery CDs soon...the recovery CDs that I got initially were only 2 out of 3...I realized that when my computer asked to insert CD#3...Circuit City (where I got the laptop from) never gave me all of the recovery CDs...ridiculous...but, they're going out of business and I don't think I'll be missing them. :)

Yes it's exactly like an external hard drive, except that you can put a desktop or laptop internal drive in there, (depending on which kind you get). The 2.5" enclosure is for laptop drives. There are other kinds for internal desktop hard drives. It's the only way short of professional data recovery that I know of that allows you to get your data off of a laptop hard drive. WinSimple Software