Windows - Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt

Hello,

OK I've been running Windows XP successfully through boot camp for quite a while now. All of a sudden I try to boot up into windows I see an error that says the following:

"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."

I couldn't boot normally and so I though maybe safemode. Nope still no success. I use rEFIt as my boot menu when I start and never had problems with it. It still displays windows as a bootable OS so thats not an issue. So I figured if I can't boot into windows to fix this I will boot into Leopard and go into the WINDOWS directory and locate this corrupt HAL.DLL file and replace it with one I found on this website:

DLL-files.com - hal.dll, free download

So I got the hal.dll file and replaced it with the one in the system32 folder and tried booting up Window again.

This error went away and now we have a new one:

"Windows could not start because of an error in the software.
Please report this problem as:
Load needed DLLs for kernel
Please contact your support person to report this problem."

So I am not sure what to do at this point, I have good computer knowledge but I need assistance tackling this issue. It might be harder than we think because I do not have my Windows XP Professional with SP2 CD to use. However I do have a legal image file of it from my school. Each student can get free software, one of which being Windows XP Pro SP2. I do not have a blank DVD on hand to burn the image to and use that as the CD for installation, recovery, etc. But I'm sure there are ways to fix this or troubleshot this without a CD.

Any Ideas, please help.

Thank you,

Steve

 

Re: Windows - Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrup

The first thing I would do is check the filesystem for errors using chkdsk. Unfortunately, it would require the recovery console from the boot cd. So........................

 

Re: Windows - Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrup

Hmm yea, considering I don't have a blank DVD...yet...you think there might be a way to do that through a USB flash drive, or the image .iso file I have. I tried unpacking the contents of the .iso into a flash drive and tried to see if it would show up in rEFit. It didn't work, but maybe if I make this USB drive with the .iso contents bootable. you think this can be done?

 

Re: Windows - Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrup

Sorry for the double post but my friends just gave me 2 CD-Rs and I plan to burn the image file onto the CD. Any suggestions on which way I should do this. Should I burn the full image, or unpack it then burn all the contents to the CD? The .iso file size is roughly 580MB.

 

Re: Windows - Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrup

normally, if you have an iso file for Windows, you just use something like CDburnerXP to burn iso to CD. It's not the same as just copying the iso to the disk and burning.

 

Re: Windows - Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrup

yea i tried experimenting with the burning on my mac and it failed. so we need to figure something out (for now) without the CD...until i get more blanks, and find a good data/.iso burning software for mac. I tired using the newest Toast app for mac and it failed on me.

 

Re: Windows - Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrup

Unfortunately I am a novice when handling these Windows problems and just got my PC a week ago. Something that really depressed me because I was not expecting problems to show up so soon. Anyway the same error is also happening for me and I do not have a clue to what I would be required to do. To make things worse the guy who loaded the OS and other software has the XP CD with him and I cant do nothing about this I guess. Any other ways which can help me repair this bug?

 

Re: Windows - Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrup

Here is the Microsoft solution but you are going to need a CD
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326671
I do not know if there is any other solution

 

Re: Windows - Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrup

I did a simple google search for "mac burn iso" and got this
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060619181010389
see if that helps