Ok, I built my own PC and it has been a rock for two years. I've since lost my copy of Windows XP, can't seem to find it.

I'm getting the HAL.DLL file is missing or corrupt error. I saw one of the threads on here regarding it, but none of the solutions work for me.

Part of the problem is that my hard drive is not IDE, but Smart (stupid) ATA. I never thought this would be a problem, but I don't know anyone who has a computer with an ATA power cable. So making my drive a slave is out.

I have a boot disk that my friend in IT made for me, including a fresh HAL.DLL file from his service pack 2. I can boot to DOS, but once there I can't seem to copy my new HAL.DLL file to my c:\winnt\system32 directory. It keeps saying invalid drive. Is there something about the DOS copy command I don't know?

I also tried editing my boot.ini file from the c: root, but it says insufficient memory. Any suggestions?

To copy the file, I went to my cd drive (f), and then from there typed
f:\>copy hal.dll c:\winnt\system32

thats when I got the error 'invalid directory specified', 0 files copied. Why can't I copy?

Noone can help? My computer is still not booting...

If you are at a command prompt, I do not believe you can copy files to a NFTS Partition, if I am wrong, someone please inform me. Are you in the repair utility when you are doing this? I believe you will need to be?

No, I'm just in the cmd prompt from a boot cd. I don't have a copy of Windows to enter the repair utility. Do I need one?

try to use NTFS for doxs

ok, i read a million threads on this hal.dll thing.
I used my xp disk (XP SP1), got to recovery. I can expand/copy hal.ll from the disk to c: but not into c:windows. it says access denied. I can't figure out how to unlock it? any thoughts. I don't want to reformat the drive and reinstall the OS because I don't want to lose everything in my docs (pictures, work stuff, etc). Please help and I'll name my next kid after you.

Hardware Abstraction Layer (hal.dll) will be needed to start windows you need to restore from your friends or relatives PC, because you doesn't have windows CD.
Take out your harddisk and make it slave (check jumper settings) then put into your friends PC and then copy the hal.dll file from it to your hardisk (where hal.dll is located).
Remove and restore the jumper settings to Master then start your PC.

Hi Nick,
I am having the old HAL.DLL problem too.
I am now going thru all the forums to see what I can find. Did anyone reply to you?