Missing hal.dll after restore

I have Acronis True Image 10 Home and just recently lost my hard drive. I replaced the hard drive and tried to restore my backup and although the backup appears to restore succesfully, I cannot boot to windows. I get an error saying hal.dll is missing or corrupt and that I need to replace the dll before I can reboot. This is a problem since I did not receive a Windows disk with the computer, but rather an OEM version that was partially stored on the hard drive that I replaced. I verified the backups as they were created so I wouldn't have thought it would be a corrupt backup. The one thing I found in the knowledge base that causes me some concern was an article regarding HAL that speaks about hardware changes. The only hardware I changed was the hard drive itself, but I did upgrade from the original 60 GB to a 100 GB when I replaced it. Could this cause some problem with the hal.dll file being out of sync with the hardware found on the machine? Any other suggestions about what might be the problem?

 

Consider the fix at the very bottom of this article:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm

Best Regards

 

Here is an excellent article that has a detailed step by step procedure for correcting this type of problem http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=313.

 

It looks like I may be hosed then. Unless I misinterpret the articles referenced in both posts here, I need a Windows XP CD in order to do any repair. In the infinite wisdom (or should I say greed) of either Microsoft or the PC/laptop manufacturers, you never get the simple luxury of an XP CD when you buy a PC or laptop these days ... they kindly place the Windows software on some hidden partition of the hard drive ... which works really well for cases like this where the hard drive is what crashes. I don't recall whether it gave me an option to create a recovery disk, but if it did, I sure as heck can't find it. In any event, I'm not sure that would have helped because the recovery disks aren't usually like a Windows install disk ... sometimes they just restore the PC or laptop to the state it was in when you purchased it which is hardly what I want in this case. This is so frustrating ... I bought the software specifically to save me in this case and now I find out that restoring works great except sometimes it doesn't if you install on a new hard drive ... what kind of lunacy is that? Wouldn't you think installing on a new hard drive after a crash is exactly the most important case where it should work? I feel like I've entered the twilight zone. Am I missing some trick here?

 

In general terms your complaint is accurate and shared by many/most in the owner/user and Tech world.

However, if you look at the very last "solution" suggested in the link that I posted above, you will find a way to gain access to your Hal via \i386 folder, using a second computer with the "defective" hard drive installed as "slave" for purpose of making the repair. <---even without the WinXP CD.

No guarantees, but it is a competent plan.

Best Regards

 

For and from a working computer, one should make a start Windows floppy disk with the Master Boot Record.

The following Microsoft page tells you how:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314079

Starting up the Computer with this floppy to boot, gets you in Windows seamlessly. And if ever your MBR gets damaged, you copy back these files to the root directory of your internal HDD.