Folks: Been working on the error: "Missing or Corrupt hal.dll" I have read many previous posts and the MS web site. My problem occurred all by itself. I was NOT upgrading or in the process of creating a dual boot. One suggestion on the MS site for my situation is to simply Re-SYS drive C using a Win98 Boot disk. Question about that: I have One physical drive partioned into C and D for Dual boot. C is Win98 (and Win98 Boots Just FINE). Drive D is for XP - only AFTER the XP boot option is selected do I get the hal.dll error message. If I RE-SYS using a Win98 disk....should I sys C AND D? The MS site does NOT address a dual boot situation. OTHER OPTION: I currently have the Recover Console up on the screen after booting with the XP CD. It is awaiting at the C prompt (I guess waiting for a command). QUESTION about This option: Should I try the Re-SYS first or try this Sytem Restore proceedure first. If the latter...what should I enter at the C prompt? But ABOVE ALL I MUST protect my DATA (it is all there now) and not do anything to mess with the FAT, etc. Any Advice from someone who has experienced and fixed this issue would be Greatly Appreciated. THANKS!

Missing or corrupt HAL.dll is a bad hardware abstraction layer problem. Not fixable in the recovery console. Boot to win 98, use explorer to retrieve your data files in XP (if FAT32 file sysytem). Once you data is moved to the 98 partition, save it to removeable media. Then reinstall XP in the partition it resides in. In any event, even if you reinstall XP, the data will still be present (if you didn't move it to the win 98 side). You will find it under the previous user folder. Good luck! Tony

Check out the procedure for fixing a missing hal file at sft-cyber.com

man edit boot.ini file put your boot.ini here, let me have a look @ it

(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