I guess I should start at the beginning.......

It all started with an extra bar of ram. Installed it and then rebooted. Nightmare starts. The desktop had disappeared. Used task manager to get it to come back temporarily. Couldnt get the Acer Recovery Program to work, said it was unavailable. What ever!!

Eventually I got the thing to reformat. New Nightmare!!!

Boot it up and it says everything is good. Then I get a message stating that the configuration file is corrupt or missing. Says put in the original CD and go to repair and chose the configuration file and install it.

Only it wouldnt go to repair so I have no choice but to reformat it again. No biggie I was starting fresh anyway. So I run it again. But now I get the same message again.

Any suggestions

Help is certainly appreciated.

Lyn

 

Go back to your original RAM configuration, pull the module you added and try again. It could be bad RAM, although that isn't usually the problem in my case, or it could be there is some hardware device that can't handle the extra memory. I went from 384MB to 512MB on a emachine desktop that is rated for 512MB RAM max but the on board graphics couldn't handle the additional RAM on Windows/Microsoft Update web site. A driver file would get caught in a loop and the system would freeze. Other operating systems had no problem with it. More specifics would help, Model number, amount of RAM installed. Operating System (Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows XP Professional, Puppy Linux). You may just need to update drivers before maxing out the RAM. Could be the wrong type of RAM. Acer is a good machine, they do one thing, and do it well.
Bug

 

The comp is an Acer AST650- Pentium 4 -3.06 ghz processor - with windows xp home edition sp2 - 512 DDR2 ram and 160 gig SATA hard drive.

I have taken the other bar of ram out. The specs on the bar are as listed on the package. Kingston- KVR533D2N4/512. 512 mb PC2- 4200 CL4 240 - Pin DIMM

 

Oh goodness I hope you get help

 

Check out www.crucial.com for an on-line scan of RAM on your PC.

It will tell you what you have, recommend specs for new Ram.
You can then compare their recommendations with the extra stick you prurchased. Bazza

 

What I need right now is to get this comp working. It appears to format correcty but then it gives me a error message.
It says that theere is a file missing and windows will not boot up.

Can I use another copy of windpws and get that file from it or what can I do?

Someone help me please.

The file i am missing is --<Wndows Root> system 32\hal.dll

 

Check out lots of google links for hal.dll at

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=h...as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images

Bazza

 

Hi, I found the file thru google and i downloaded it and burnt it on another comp. However it didnt work, so I sent an email to acer aboout this problem and they say that it is a hardware problem. The comp is under warranty.

Thanks everyone

Lynda