Member Avatar for plc2201

old drive crashed
installed new drive (Seagate 160GB 7200rpm)
have XP Home Edition installation CD (includes SP2)

get error message that windows cannot start because <windows root>\system32\hal.dll is missing or corrupt, reinstall the file

How do I do that from a new drive???!

I've deleted everything on the drive and will start over with the Seagate Disc Utility in the morning - oh look at the time! I've already been at this for too many hours....... :mad:

Any help appreciated

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Dani AI

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A short addendum that builds on the replies from and and that may help others who see the same "hal.dll missing or corrupt" message after fitting a new drive. marked the thread solved, but the error can come from several distinct causes; the steps below cover the safer, low‑level repairs and a couple of gotchas that were not described in the replies.

Recovery Console quick repair sequence (boot from the XP CD, enter Recovery Console and confirm the CD drive letter with map):

chkdsk /r
fixboot
fixmbr
expand D:\i386\hal.dl_ C:\WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll
bootcfg /rebuild

Notes on those commands: chkdsk /r fixes filesystem and sector problems; fixboot and fixmbr repair the boot sector/MBR so the loader can find Windows; expand restores the hal file from the CD (the CD copy may be compressed as hal.dl_); bootcfg /rebuild recreates a correct boot.ini entry. Use the actual CD drive letter shown by map and confirm C:\Windows is the target install.

Other practical points not covered earlier: the hal is hardware‑specific—moving a cloned installation to different motherboard/CPU often requires a Repair Install to replace the HAL. On machines with SATA-only controllers, XP may need controller drivers; switching the BIOS to IDE/compatibility mode or slip‑streaming drivers into the XP media (nLite or similar) is a common solution. Do not copy a hal.dll from another machine unless the hardware is identical. Also ensure the Windows partition is primary and marked active so the loader will target the right volume.

These steps preserve data more often than a full reinstall and explain why a fresh blank drive can still present a hal.dll error even when the CD is present.

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Member Avatar for nanosani

You're not booting from CD ROM. Boot from the cd rom... n try installing again.

Member Avatar for goldeagle2005

Yeah. Also, if your HDD was indeed clean, you wouldn't get this message. Make sure you format the HDD correctly.

Member Avatar for plc2201

thanks, problem has been fixed

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