HAL.DLL?

This could be a long post.

Recently I uninstalled Windows Vista (and no, I don't think it sucks! I just fancied a change) so, I uninstalled vista and put Windows XP on it. It was rubbish my wireless network didn't work well with it etc... so I left it a few days, and I've come to reinstall vista. Im quite tired so I wasn't 100% focused on it.

I inserted the bootdisc for Vista, it asked me what language I wanted to install it in. I thought wait, I want to delete windows xp and then reinstall it. I switched off my laptop and tried again, hoping for that blue screen where it ask's if I wanted to repair my copy of windows, or create a new partition etc... but it didn't.

So I restarted the laptop again and waited for the screen asking me to "boot from disc, press any key" or something like that, to see if I could do it that way. But for some reason im shown this message;

"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've done a few searches, telling me to do various things but it won't get past that message for example, It won't ask me to boot or whatever. For the record Im using a Fujistu Siemens ESPRIMO Mobile, any help will be appreciated and alot of rep

Reinstall Windows is the easier option unless you feel getting technical.

Assuming you have Windows XP still on the hard drive and want to restore windows XP:

- Boot from the CD and when prompted enter the recovery console
- Type the following commands:
-- bootcfg /rebuild
-- When prompted, press Y followed by enter
-- At the next prompt enter Windows XP
-- Finally at the next prompt type: /Fastdetect followed by enter
-- fixboot

If this does not fix your problems, boot from the XP cd again and enter the recovery console and type:

expand d:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll

Where D is the letter of the CD drive of the XP disk in.

Take out the CD, type exit followed by enter and hopefully you will boot into windows xp.

Hi,

Yeah I'm not too sure how I can boot from the CD because when I press "ESC" It asks me to boot from CD, Harddrive and something else. I select the CD but then I get the same message, and I'm not too sure if there is another way around apart from entering the setup menu and choosing the order of boot or whatever, but when I do the CD drive is already at the top.

I was going to take it back because it had faulty speakers and some other stuff, this would be the perfect time to take it back if it was only a faulty hard drive but if they did fix the hard drive they may notice that I put XP on it and may not repair it for me? Not sure why, but meh.

Try the XP CD in another computer and see if you can boot into it from there.

Thanks for the help +rep.
I've fixed the laptop turns out, you were right... but I booted the wrong thing, I was booting the harddrive and not the disc. Must not have been reading it right, a silly mistake really.