i have dual boot on two HD, both XP Pro SP2
suddenly one of them (drive C can not boot....
"Missing or corrupt HAL.DLL"
i have google & see Microsoft Knowledge and try some advice but still no work.
example:

* boot into recovery console, del boot.ini then bootcfg /rebuild, fixboot
* copy & overwrite hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe from my working windows
* boot in recovery & run chkdsk /r -> no error / no bad sector
* expand & overwrite hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe from windows xp installer
* expand & overwrite hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe from Service pack 2 installer

any other idea? i dont want to reinstall ........
please help........
note: my other win xp (drive D is ok.

thx
dp

Interesting this error is because I fixed a computer with the exact same error after several system halts. Like usual I opened the case and discovered he had no CPU fan on the heat sink, (p3 socket 370 600+ processor), I ran diagnostics test of hard drive, file system, master boot record, all checked out OK. The first few attempts at installing windows xp proved to be a failure. I decided to peel of the Heat sink and put an heat sink fan on. That’s when I discovered a thin metal piece that was not taken off the Heat sink, (his computer buddy installed his heat sink). The cpu was not looking good in color, the make and model number was unreadable from an overheated cpu. I ran diagnostic test of his cpu. I discovered that his system cache was not working, I was getting errors with the cache memory (this test was done before I installed the heat sink and fan) I installed xp with some IO errors and that is understandable , he is able to use windows and most apps but when windows componets or IO operations are used by the computer he gets errors.
So I’d say maybe system bios setting not set properly, or even maybe something up with system cache similar as the computer I fixed.
I'm not saying that this is a cpu problem with your problem but maybe there is something wrong or corrupted with system cache PFT or pagefile. How to fix use a program like diskkeeper and do a pft, Pagefile check. two Pagefile PFT conflicting with eachother

THX,

mine: dual boot XP in 2 HD with no partition

XP Games in 250GB c:\windows, pagefile in d:
XP in 120GB d:\windows, pagefile in c:

only XP games got this error, the other XP no problem at all.

Ok i will try diskkeeper.......
thx for the info....



edit:
my spec:

E6300
Asrock 775DUAL-VSTA
2 x 1GB Kingston KVR PC5300
Inno3D 6600GT AGP
Maxtor SATA 250GB & 120GB IDE
DVDRW Pioneer
TT 430W

i dont OC & my CPU temp is arround 40-44c with stock cooling.

If you have other computer using the same OS just copy the file and load it from safe mode if you can. If not you need to move the hard drive where you need to copy the HAL.dll from.