When I turned on my PC this morning, I got a black screen with the message that the file HAL.DLL was missing or corrupt. I rebooted with the XP CD and entered the repair console. Curiously, it didn't ask me which Windows installation I wanted to log in to as it usually does, nor did it ask for the Administrator password. It just dropped my to the C:\ prompt. I ran CHKDSK /R and it ran successfully and said it made some repairs. I also ran BOOTCFG /REBUILD. I got an error "Failed to successfully scan disks for Windows installations" etc. From the C:\ prompt, I did a DIR, and there is no Windows directory in the listing. I recognise all the other directories, but there's no C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINNT. I can see now why it can't find C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\HAL.DLL, because apparently the whole dir is gone! Anyone have any ideas why this happened and what I can do to recover? Thanks a lot.

(the hal.dll issue) Error Message: Windows Could Not Start Because the Following File Is Missing or Corrupt... http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320252 -------------------- (the hal.dll issue) Error Message: Windows Could Not Start Because of a Computer Disk Hardware Configuration Problem http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314477

Thanks for the info, but I've already tried to deal with the missing HAL.DLL. It seems that I have a bigger problem--my C:\WINDOWS dir is missing, so there'e no place to write a new HAL.DLL to. Any advice regarding that issue would be greatly appreciated.

Try this and see if it finds the old installation and repair 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 cd you will have to d/l sp1 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. If you don't want SP2 go to autopatcher.com and d/l SP1 and subsequent updates.

When I proceed to do a Windows XP installation, it does not find the old installation, so there is no option to repair it. It just shows a partition on C: and asks if I want to set up Windows XP on the partition. Since I've already determined that my other folders are still intact, I didn't want to proceed for fear of losing everything. Any more suggestions?

Looks like a clean install. You shouldn't lose anything, you will just have to reinstall all the programs and updates.

Thanks again for the info...any idea how this happened? Is this an indicator of a failing hard drive, perhaps? There's a possibility that my PC lost power over the weekend while I was gone (there were storms in my area). I've had do perform a CHKDSK /R in the past when I lost power, and that usually solves it. I just can't figure out why my C:\Windows dir got deleted.