Alright, to make things easier, I'll just paste what I posted on another forum:

*whew* Here we go.

Step one: Backup all essentials and stick on secondary 250gb drive
Step Two: Insert WinXP Pro SP2 edition in drive
Step Three: Select fresh install - reboot, enter windows setup
Step Four: Delete C partition and format NTFS
Step Five: Setup installs nessasary install files and restarts
Step Six: ERROR.
Quote:
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.


Well, After many, many hours spent reformatting, trying to install again, reading on various websites, doing expand e:/i386/hal.dl_ c:/windows/system32/hal.dll giving me "error, cannot move file, 0 files have been moved" , deleting boot.ini...

Right now, I'm running a chkdsk /r which is only at 60ish %, after that, im going to
bootcfg /rebuild
fixboot
fixmbr

and if that doesnt work, I'm going to download a hal.dll off a site, stick it on a floppy and load it from there. Keep in mind, I have no more windows on my C drive and I dont want to put it on D cause I'll losemy backup.

No go. So I downloaded a hal.dll of the net, did the floppy move thing, no go.

Went to a guys house to try all sorts of crap. Took my HD, installed it as a secondary on his PC, formatted using some tool that 0's the drive. stuck it back in mine, tried installing windows, hal.dll error. okay, next. we put in an old 6gb drive, formatted it, tried installing windows on my pc, hal.dll error. we even used another CD-Rom drive, same error. So, we came to the conclusion that its not the CD Drive, the CD, (cause I used 4 diff windows cd's) or the hard drive. Here's some more info then.

Its an HP something or other workstation PC. ya know, the ones that are used in office buildings. After everything I tried, we're guessing its something internaly, mayhaps on the motherboard, some specific file that's not allowing changes to be made. We're also thinking that a virus is doing this, and its somehow stuck in the bios.. With those new facts in mind, new solutions? I'd prefer not to go to Linux or Ubuntu cause if it works, then what? I'd rather do what I can to get windows running.

I'm wondering, can I take the HD out, put it as a secondary on another computer, and install windows through that one? Does it give me an option of which drive to install it? I can try that, install windows, and then put my drive back in, but then will it give me some new error because of hardware changes... *sigh*