Ok, my system spec is as follows: Motherboard - Asus K8S-MX Processor - AMD 3700+ (754 pin) Ram - 2GB Ram Graphics Card - ATI Radeon 9600 Pro Hard Drives: 1 x 200GB IDE Hard Drive 2 x 200GB RAID 1 configured hard drives (effectively 1 x 200GB Drive) 1 x 400GB external (via USB) Western Digital MyBook hard drive Screen: 19" Samsung SyncMaster 913N Keyboard: Dell Multimedia Keyboard Mouse: Microsoft Optical Mouse 1 x Firewire card (4 ports) Printer: Dell AIO 942 printer When i try to boot, i get the following messgae: 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 cant boot into any options of windows, safe mode, safe mode with networking, last known good configuration mode etc. etc. So, this went on for a while. I tried copying that file (hal.dll) any which way back onto the pc. They were ways such as an XP Pro boot disk, windows XP pro install CD recovery consol, recover the install (using the XP Pro disk) etc. Nothing worked. So, what i did, was to re-install windows (after copying EVERYTHING onto the WD external hard drive). I unplugged everything but the essentials for hte re-install. Because i have it, i installed Norton Ghost 9.0 onto the pc and made an image - VERY lucky! Ok, so everything is working fine, can restart ok etc.etc. I come to plugging in the WD drive to start copying data off it. So i think, i am going to try the re-start before i start doing all the work. So i restart and this damned problem comes back. Again, cant get it to boot into windows, so what i do is restore the system back to just before i installed the drive. Then i copy the originals of both the boot.ini (supposidly a suspect in this issue) file and the hal.dll onto my desktop. Then i plug in the HD and install those drivers. As i know this is going to mess up, i restore the copied files (hal.dll and boot.ini) back to the proper locations (in the process noticing that infact the contents and sizes are still 100% identical). How can i solve this - PLEASE HELP because everything is on the WD HDD and i am scared to plug it into my laptop for the obvious reasons. I cant call the WD support cause they are not open at the moment, and i really need to sort this problem out. Any suggestions will be gratefully received and I will try every one of them (becaues i can just restore if they dont work!!) Thanks guys - much appreciated Matt

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000490.htm i_XpUser

Thank you for that link - gone through everything on that page already, and has not solved the issue :( M

Have you tried a system repair? If that doesn't do it you may have to zero out the hdd. The WD utility cd has the program on it. How to do a system repair.--Boot from the xp cd and go past the recovery console to the install menu. Select repair the existing installation. You won't lose any data except the xp updates. Unless you have a slipstream sp1 Or SP2 cd you will have to d/l sp1 or sp2 and all subsequent updates. You MUST have at least SP1 installed and the updates for security reasons. Be sure the firewall and A/V is active before going online as you will be susceptible to sasser and msblaster. http://computervitals.com/

Looks like most things have been tried? Have you checked Kellys Corner? http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/ xp_haldll_missing.htm

sorted it out what it was is that the system was trying to boot off the external HDD (which ofcourse did not have hal.dll on it, because it does not have a version of windows installed on it). This was causing the whole problem, and a quick change of the bios boot order sorted this. I also got the same thing when i plugged my ipod in the first time. hope this helps someone else Matt :-)