Hi , hoping someone can help, been searching for answer to this problem for days!!!!

ACER Travelmate 8571 laptop with 4gb ram
OS - XP Pro with SP 1,2,3

Unable to start laptop and get the 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.”

Put XP Pro Setup disk in cd drive to do repair:
Setup loads files, gets to “Setup is Starting Windows” the Blue Screen of Death appears showing:
“STOP: 0x0000007B (oxF78D2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)”

Run Norton Bootable Recovery Virus check - shows no virus issues
Run Chkdsk /f - again indicated no problems
Completed Memtest - again no issues

Any ideas! This has baffled me????

ok not sure if im right take pll on here a while to reply but they will always give u good advice but for now only thing i could think of is u need to change boot priority in bios when u start computer think normally f2 to go into bios then go to boot and make sure cd dvd drive is number 1 then if still dont boot could be bad disc otherwise wait for 1 of the techs on here they r great

Thanks

Terry,

Thanks, the CD is booting okay, it loads but Blue Screens after files loaded and it trys to start windows.

Jeff

could be files missing on that disc or corrupt if i correct in what u saying . but sure tech will be here to help u soon

Okay jeffbullock,
You have checked your memory and hard drive... you may have to delete any existing partitions and perform a quick NTFS format. Of course you will loose all data. You could pull the hard drive and install another to load XP on, then place the old drive in an external USB enclosure to recover data after the laptop is back up and running