Xp wont start up anymore

I used partition manager to try and utilize all 200 gigs of my harddrive. I did not partition it ad now i think that somehow messed up the registry. When i rebooted yesterday the sytems said " windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <windows root>\system32\hal.dll. please reinstall a copy of the above file.

I cannot find my copy of windows xp cd. Is there another way i could solve this issue?

i tried accessing windows in safe mode with command prompt and every other configuration allowed by pressing F8, but I still get the same error.


an help would be appreciated.

 

thanks for the link TimW, . I was able to find the file. My problem now is installing it either from windows ME which is the OS on my other harddrive. or from some boot cd. Does anyone have an idea of how I could do this?

 

that sounds good. But I reformated the harddrive to NFTS format because I thought it would be better, and I dont think Windows ME can access that format. Should have left it as Fat32...


Should i bother to try that? because im not sure im im correct.


PS: i tried to use partition manager in windows ME to fix it.... but it says the harddrive is invalid so no commads work on it except the delete command.

 

i dont have a desktop that is easily accessable...is it possivle to slave it to a laptop? Worst comes to worst i will take it to a friends house tomorrow, but in the mean time im open to more suggestions.

 

ok I replaced that file in the system32 folder but it still doesnt work.

i think there is a hal.dll file in some other folder that i saw when i ran a search...i will try to replace that one as well, but i doubt anything will happen.

is there anything else i can do from my friend's desktop? He's running Xp home. My desktop was running XP pro by the way.

still says the same error as of right now.

 

A repair installation at this point is probably the best case.

 

Some info that might help out on the Hal.dll (Hardware Abstraction Layer) issue:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm

 

More info:

Quoted from my previous link.

 

Thanks...I'm not often here, but I try.

 

thanks fellas...I will try the previous and report back.

I dont understand the step involving "boot.ini" I will try it without that first.

 

maaaan....ok so it didnt work. I copied that one file into the other file as intructed above.

can anybody tell me how i cant locate the boot.ini file and explain what to do to it
I found a "Boot.ini.backup" file. Is it possible that the original boot.ini file got erased and not showing up in the search? In this backup file, it says something about XPpro and something else about windows Me on there. Are the instructions to delete one of these entries?


one more thing that may be an issue is that upon booting, i can get a glimpse of some messages in which "you have installed more memory than this system can handle" appears. Im thinking that i may have to partition the 200 gig harddrive from another computer in order to fix this, would you advise for or against this? Should i change all the files from NFTS back to Fat32 again (from another XP system) so i can fix the problem from windows Me? or will this cause more problems?

ah, what to do.



thanks for the help theefool and TimW...I think im getting closer to the fix