"load needed DLL's for HAL"

I am running Windows XP SP2 Pro edition. I was rendering a home movie I made
using Pinnacle video editing software last night. I let it render as I was
sleeping. When I woke this morning the movie was complete on the DVD, but my
computer was at a boot screen with the following error message "load needed
DLL's for HAL". I tried restarting and just continue to get the same
message. Has anyone experienced a problem like this? Any ideas on what is
needed to correct the problem? I hate to have to reload Windows from scratch
again.

Thanks for any help,

Eric

HAL is the Hardware Abstraction Layer and probably points to a driver error.
Can you restart in Safe Mode and see what the Event Viewer or maybe even
Device Manager are telling you?


--
Roger Lemon
Newport Pagnell
England





"Eric66" wrote:

I am running Windows XP SP2 Pro edition. I was rendering a home movie I made
using Pinnacle video editing software last night. I let it render as I was
sleeping. When I woke this morning the movie was complete on the DVD, but my
computer was at a boot screen with the following error message "load needed
DLL's for HAL". I tried restarting and just continue to get the same
message. Has anyone experienced a problem like this? Any ideas on what is
needed to correct the problem? I hate to have to reload Windows from scratch
again.

Thanks for any help,

Eric

Eric66 wrote:

I am running Windows XP SP2 Pro edition. I was rendering a home movie
I made
using Pinnacle video editing software last night. I let it render as
I was
sleeping. When I woke this morning the movie was complete on the DVD,
but my computer was at a boot screen with the following error message
"load needed
DLL's for HAL". I tried restarting and just continue to get the same
message. Has anyone experienced a problem like this? Any ideas on
what is
needed to correct the problem? I hate to have to reload Windows from
scratch again.

Thanks for any help,

Eric

Is it this error message, "WINDOWS COULD NOT FIND START BECAUSE THE
FOLLOWING FILE IS MISSING OR CORRUPT
WINDOWS ROOT\SYSTEM32\hal.dll" ?

If so, here is information from the late great Alex Nichol to fix it:

"That message is rather misleading. It happens because the boot.ini
file that tells the boot where to look for 'Windows' is damaged, so it
is looking for files in the wrong place - hal.dll just happens to be
the first one it looks for. Set the BIOS to boot CD before Hard Disk.
Boot the XP CD and, instead of Setup, take the immediate R for Repair.
Assume any password requested is blank, and TAB over.

Use
Attrib -H -R -S C:\boot,ini
DEL C:\boot.ini
to delete the bad one
BootCfg /Rebuild

to search for Windows installations and make a new one."

See if that helps.

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User