[Rawe]

Are you getting the hal.dll missing\corrupt error while booting your PC.
The hal.dll is unique for every PC, so you should'nt copy another one from someone else's PC; but you can re-create it or get a fresh virgin copy.
Follow the steps below, for re-creating one on your PC:

• In ur BIOS set CD-ROM has 1st Boot Device.
  
• Insert XP Setup CD, to boot from CD.
  
• After the intial loading of drivers is over, on the Welcome to Setup Screen with 3 options; Press R key, to "Repair XP installtion using Recovery Console".
  
• On the next screen you will be asked to choose your Windows installtion, choose the one that is causing the problem by typing the number beside it.
  
• Now you will be prompted for the password of Administrator, enter it; If password is blank, just press <enter>.
  
• Type the following commands, and press enter after each one:
  • Attrib -H -R -S C:\Boot.ini
    (where C: is the partition where XP was installed)
    
  • DEL C:\Boot.ini
    
  • BootCfg /Rebuild
    
  • Fixboot
  
  
• Reboot ur PC

If and only if the other above steps dont do the trick; you should try getting a virgin copy; follow the steps below:
Use the same steps to get into Recovery Console as suggested previously.
I'll give two more ways to recover from this error from the Recovery Console, use any one of them.
Use Method1 only if u downloaded SP2 and installed it.
Use Method2 if u have installed SP2 from CD and u have the CD; or if u have'nt installed SP2 at all.

Method1:
Type the following comamds:
cd\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386
copy hal.dll c:\Windows\System32.

Method2:
Type the following comamd:
expand x:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll.
(where x: the drive-leeter of ur CD-ROM drive and c: is the partition where XP was installed)

by darth_ash