how many times have you have been greeted with this dreaded message “Windows\system32\hal.dll missing” when you start up your computer, or perhaps you are reading this page because you have the problem right now, either if you’re here by curiosity or hastingly looking for a solution to this problem, I will try to give the best possible ways to fix it. Read on.

The first thing we need to realize is that this is a “Boot“ problem and most likely caused by a corrupted boot.ini file. To fix this problem you need to have your original windows CD with you, or any other CD with the same Operating system you computer is running with, and boot from it. To do that you insert the CD on the CD- ROM Drive and wait until it asks you if you want to boot from the CD” normally it says “Press any key to boot from CD” press any key to do so. If you are not getting this message after putting the CD in, you need to configure BIOS to take the CD first. Watch your screen messages at start up for the key you need to press to get into BIOS, some computers let you press certain key to choose a boot medium too.

After booting from the CD the computer will load all the required genetic drivers until you get an message that says “Welcome To Setup” there you need to press “R” on your keyboard to get into the recovery console, if prompted, type your administrator user name and password. Once at the command prompt type, Bootcfg /list and then press Enter. the current entries on your boot.ini file will show up on the screen with that command, a healthy boot.ini file will look like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

you are getting the Windows\system32\hal.dll missing“ error is because the boot.ini does not look like the example above, it might be missing some entries. to rebuild the boot.ini file, type this command “bootcfg /rebuild“ and press Enter. That command will scan your computer for the current windows installation on your computer, and it will give the results a the end, follow the instruction on how to rebuild the boot.ini file. For example, if you want to rebuild a boot.ini for windows it will go like this:

When you receive a message that is similar to the following message, press Y:

Total Identified Windows Installs: 1

[1] C:\Windows
Add installation to boot list? (Yes/No/All)

You receive a message that is similar to the following message:
Enter Load Identifier
This is the name of the operating system. When you receive this message, type the name of your operating system, and then press ENTER. This is either Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition.
you receive a message that is similar to the following:
Enter OS Load options
When you receive this message, type /fastdetect, and then press ENTER.

Type “Exit” on the command prompt and wait to see if the OS finds the new boot.ini file.

Another way I have been successful fixing this problem is by booting from the original Windows CD, and when entering at the recovery console, type: “fixmbr” to fix the master boot record on the system.

if the above procedures don’t fix the problem you probably better off doing a repair on the windows installation. boot from the installation CD basically in the same way as mentioned above, and when you get to the agreement window, press “F8″ to accept the agreement, the system will search for the current windows OS on your computer, when you get the option to install a fresh operating system copy or repair the current one, choose repair. That will basically reinstall windows, but will leave all your data intact.

Let me know if this article was helpful.