hal corrupt or missing

Yesterday I got the dread 'hal.dll is missing or corrupt' message for the 2nd time this month. A safe reload of the OS (XP Pro SP2) fixed it (as it did before). But why am I getting this problem? Twice in a month? This PC has run more or less perfectly for 8 months or more; the occasional lock up once in a while, nothing major. But these 2 corrupt hal messages have me worried. The first one came out of the blue. The one yesterday happened after booting up, the PC locked up while desktop was loading. The icons in the system tray loaded about half way, and that was it. I waited about 10 minutes before I hit the reset button, and then got the hal.dll message. Is something dying in my PC? Time for a new HD? Should I back up my stuff and wipe the drive and start over with a clean Windows? Any ideas, help, or suggestions will be appreciated! Thanx!

hd2k

 

Time for a new HD? i will say yes, BUT i see some program corrupting the hall.dll sometimes what do you install lately......

How old is your HD ???

 

I'm installing and uninstalling different software all the time, I'm not 100% sure, but I think I had just installed the newest version of Arovax Shield. I was running the beta of AShield for a long time w/o incident, and removed it to install the newest version. I don't think it was an AShield problem. I'd been having some occasional lock ups here and there (usually when burning DVD movies); so maybe it is time for a new HD. It's a SATA 160gb. It's probably just out of warranty knowing my luck I'll probably image it to a new 250gb I've been saving for just such an occasion. Or should I just go with a fresh install on the new drive to avoid any software issues??? Whuddaya think??
Thanx!

hd2k

 

Yep, if you have time go with the fresh install nothing beat that.....