Im typing on my desktop now cuz my laptop messed up a day ago. I was using my laptop and all of sudden it freezes up. I have a dell inspiron with window xp on it. It is off of warranty. I restart my laptop and I gets the following message: Ive tried to turn it off and restart plenty of times. I insert the xp disk it comes with and that done nothing. I try to start in safe modes and things but it wont do that either as the same message keeps coming up. If I want, I could reinstall xp but I have many pics that I want to keep on here that show 3 of the past years of family life with some of dead people now. I dont mind reinstall but i really want to save pics. Does anybody have a solution to this problem?
This is what is says missing is: Code: <Windows root>\system32\hal.dll for some reason it all didnt show up on my first post.
put in the xp disc and do "Repair Windows" or try a system restore from the disc (dont remember if its there)
I saw that message all the time around the office back at school. Check out this link: http://icrontic.com/articles/repair_windows_xp
I'd probably suggest what's above, but if it's stuff that pretty much 100% needs to be saved...and if you have an external hard drive... Download a boot CD (Linux, easiest to find would probably be ubuntu) Find whatever you want to save, transfer it to an external drive, then try the above. If all else fails, you already have everything backed up and can reload xp.
You have to config your BIOS to boot from CD for the xp repair to load. Typically, selecting the options to repair/recover system file only will do the job (you won't lose any data or files).
I usually go here for my computer problems. They usually reply within a day and help you step by step.
I have an Inspiron 8200... had this message listing different files several times on the machine. Do a repair as others have suggested. If the repair does not work, get an external hard drive case for a 2.5" hard drive, pull the hard drive out of your laptop, insert it into the external case, and then use your desktop to pull the files you want off of it. Afterwards, put the HD back in the laptop and then reload XP.
Seriously though, do try a repair install, if it doesn't work, try the link I posted before you re-load XP. It's worked for me in the past.
If it is missing that file, you might have to get it from a .CAB file from an XP SP2 CD from someone else. You will more than likely have to register that DLL with Winders so that it knows to load it at startup. I can't for the life of me remember how to do this, but I believe you have to invoke "regsrv32" and use a parameter to register that DLL. If you can extract the hal.dll from another machine, then use regsrv32, you'll be in business. I gotta run somewhere, but if I can get some clear instructions on this I will come back to post it. Search "extract a DLL" from a "CAB file", and then search for "register a DLL" using "regsrv32" on Google. Hope that helps for now.
Repair did lil as I cant remember my administater pass. i did able to get it to start back up but its so slow like a turtles and all kind of messages keep coming up. im gonna try to save my pcs and just format. Thanks for halping guys.
