Gargan Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Can someone explain to me what causes the hal.dll to become missing or corrupt. Yesterday I decided to reinstall the OS on my main computer to 32bit XP, after installing the drivers and apps and restarting several times all of a sudden windows won't boot. I recieved a message saying the hal.dll had become missing or corrupt. So I tried to repair it using the recover console; however, that didn't work and I ended up reinstalling the OS again. The second time I couldn't even get through installing my drivers before it happened again. Long story short I have reinstalled the OS a total of 5 times in the last 2 days using both XP Pro and XP Pro x64. The last time it happend was during a restart after installing COD2. I have never had this problem before yesterday and now it just keeps happening. I have read many posts on how to fix the problem (I finaly found one that worked ); however, my question is: why does this happen? Could this be hardware related, even though everything ran fine (for the most part) when I was using XP x64 for the last 3 months? I did switch out my RAM 1 1/2 weeks ago but, never had any other issue with it. This is becoming rather irratating as there doesn't seem to be a pattern as to when it will happen. Thanks in advance to any help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gargan Posted June 13, 2006 Author Share Posted June 13, 2006 Anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xantheus Posted June 13, 2006 Share Posted June 13, 2006 The same thing happened to me, basically the Windows OS installation is looking at the wrong Hard Drive when looking for Hal.dll What i basically did was get rid of my old 2nd hard drive and then do it, or at least disable them so the pc doesnt recognise it (just pull out the power cables) I cant guarantee this would work though, but its worth a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gargan Posted June 13, 2006 Author Share Posted June 13, 2006 Thanks for the reply. Right now everything seems to be working fine, although I haven't restarted more than once since I last repaired it. I can understand disabling the other HDs while installing XP but, once the OS it loaded and all the drivers are installed how does it get messed up when restarting after installing a game? Or how can I aviod it happening again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexcyn Posted June 13, 2006 Share Posted June 13, 2006 Hal.dll is the hardware abstraction layer that Windows creates for your hardware when you install Windows. I've seen many programs corrupting this file for some reason ... many factors come into play here. It could be drivers that aren't working properly that corrupt the file, or even a program installation. Just be very careful in what you install, and for the most part make sure your drivers are WHQL certified just to be on the safe side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gargan Posted June 13, 2006 Author Share Posted June 13, 2006 ^ Makes sense. Although everything I had installed; drivers (versions), apps (w/patches) had been used without and problems before. Everything I installed was from a disk I made a few months ago with known compatiability. All drivers are WHQL certifed. I can now understand how it can become corrupt but, I don't understand how in my situtation it did, and so many times with out a pattern for that matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexcyn Posted June 13, 2006 Share Posted June 13, 2006 It could be there is something wrong with a piece of your hardware ... I'm not sure what components can corrupt that ... maybe your hard drive is dying? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gargan Posted June 13, 2006 Author Share Posted June 13, 2006 LOL, I REALY hope not. I've spent alot of money in the last few months on that computer :( I'll run some scans tonight when I get home. Luckily I still have a warranty on my drives and a few externals to back up on to be safe. I did replace the RAM last week and haven't run MEMTEST on it, as I have had no reason to. I have read somewhere that it could be memory related so, I'll go ahead and test it as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djesteban Posted June 13, 2006 Share Posted June 13, 2006 LOL, I REALY hope not. I've spent alot of money in the last few months on that computer :( I'll run some scans tonight when I get home. Luckily I still have a warranty on my drives and a few externals to back up on to be safe. I did replace the RAM last week and haven't run MEMTEST on it, as I have had no reason to. I have read somewhere that it could be memory related so, I'll go ahead and test it as well. yep you might want to run memtest86 to see if you RAM is damaged. Could've get damage while you were installing them (static flash?) etc etc... if your RAM is fine, then run HD Tune to see if you HDD is damage/on the verge of dying.... it's a free, quick and easy tool to know if your HDD is going AWOL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panacik Posted June 13, 2006 Share Posted June 13, 2006 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...b;en-us;Q249694 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gargan Posted June 13, 2006 Author Share Posted June 13, 2006 (edited) Rich, can you explain what in that article is relvent to this topic. I saw you posted the same link the other current thread about the hal.dll yet with out reading the entire page I can't find any info that relates to my or XPNewbie's problem. It does give some info about the hal.dll but, only in regards to moving an OS to new hardware; which in both situations is not the case. I don't want to sound ungreatful of your input; however, can you provide something other than just a link. Edited June 13, 2006 by Vassili151 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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