Hi there,

I'm using another computer to access to this forum. Currently, my original desktop computer is encountering a problem at startup:

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

<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll"

Here is some info about my computer.

Product Name: ASPIRE E500
BIOS Ver. : R02-A3
SMBIOS Ver: 2.3.1

I have searched in the web about the solutions, but I realised a problem when I tried executing them.

When I inserted the AcerRecovery Disc and restarted the computer, it went through the normal stuff until it gone straight into a message saying "Copying the files" and after a while, it says "Restore finished".

What other solutions said was to first access a command-prompt environment using the Recovery Console, before I could execute the commands to restore the boot.ini file and stuff.

But the problem is, the Acer eRecovery Console did not start as what the Acer website said it would, but instead gone through the procedure I described above. Hence, I could not even try executing these solutions in the website.

I do not have any idea why the disc did not run as stated in the Acer website itself, except of the possibility that the disc was faulty. But I highly doubt it.

I do not mind losing the information on the HDD but I really need the desktop computer. I will be really grateful if you could help me in one way or another.

Thanks =D

did you boot to the disc first by hitting any key when you first turn on pc ? just checking to narrow things down. when did this problem start ? and does your recovery disc have the operating system on it (windows) ? can you get into safe mode by hitting f8 when you power on ?(assuming xp )

Yep, I booted to the disc by hitting F12 when in the first screen.

This problem started about only a few days ago.

Ya, the recovery disc had the OS on it (Windows XP).

I tried getting into the safe mode by hitting F8 on first screen, but this option and other options all failed as the same error occured.

Hmm, I still have no idea how to solve this problem.

Just FYI, I did try a number of solutions to get into the recovery console and type the commands, but apparently I could not enter the console to get into a command prompt.

"I do not have any idea why the disc did not run as stated in the Acer website" if it did not run like it was supposed to then try hitting the space bar when you first turn on instead of f12 , i think f12 sends you to a whole different place (not the disc), soon as u hit the power button start hitting the space bar till the cd starts .. see if that works ? and post back please...(again i am just ruleing certain stuff out) Thanks

i got the hal.exe w.e problem when i had shut off the computer power without letting the computer properly shut down....i fixed it by booting the windows xp disk and went to the recovery console and let it fix it.....

if u are using the winxp disk....remember to go to bios and change the boot sequence so it boots from ur dvd drive rather than ur HD

I wanted to do that..But right now, the problem is when I tried to reformat using the disc (I did change the boot sequence to DVD first), it went straight into a window tt looked like the recovery console, but it immediately said "Copying Files........" and after a while "Restore finished". After that, the recovery disc was ejected and the computer restarted. I had no chance of selecting the option of reformatting the disc whatsoever.

Hmm, any idea what could ahve caused it? Please help, thanks.

boot from recovery disk.....press r to go to recovery console...it should say something like: which windows installation whould u liek to log into???....then type 1 and press enter....type in ur admin password.....type in this....bootcfg /rebuild and press enter....it will display the steps to add the winxp installation to the boot.ini files <---where hal.dll is located......somehting will pop up asking add installation to boot list...type in y...hit enter....then it says enter load identifier....type in windows xp home edition (if u have win xp home) or type in windows xp professional (if u have win xp professional)...hit enter....then it asks enter os load options.....type in /Fastdetect and hit enter...then take out cd and boot normally...remember to switch the boot sequence back to HD first...hope that helps