hal.dll appeared-trying to reinstall windows

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February 13th, 2009, 10:59 PM
tiredofthis

hal.dll appeared-trying to reinstall windows

My problem started after my husband spilled a big gulp all over the keyboard. He sopped it up somehow, but did not turn the laptop upside down or remove harddrive-battery & keyboard. The next day I tried to boot the laptop and this message appeared: Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows root> \system32\hal.dll. Please reinstall a copy of the above file. After googling for a few days and trying some of the suggestions on other boards I called dell...they walked me through about an hour of attempts to boot the computer. They finally said my hard drive must be physically damaged - buy a new one. they tried to talk me into a ridiculously priced external drive. I went to walmart and bought a reasonably priced external hard drive. Now I'm trying to reinstall windows. If I keep my internal hard drive in the pc I can't get past the hal error message and the windows CD will not start. If I take the HD out and plug in my external HD then the Setup stops at the screen where you choose to repair, reinstall or quit. If I leave the external HD unplugged and the internal HD out then it tells me there is no hard drive to boot to. Someone please help. I need this laptop working & to somehow retrieve the info on my internal drive. I'm running windows xp on a dell inspiron e1505 laptop.:knife:
February 14th, 2009, 07:01 AM
CCT

Can you enter Bios during boot?
February 14th, 2009, 08:53 AM
MobilePCPhysician

Put the internal drive back in. Leave the external drive un-plugged. Insert the recovery/restore/windows xp disc in the cd rom. Boot from the cd and set up Windows. It should see your previous installation of Windows. Select the repair option. Follow the prompts until it finishes.

Make sure all liquids are out of the laptop.
February 14th, 2009, 11:45 AM
geoscomp

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiredofthis

They finally said my hard drive must be physically damaged - buy a new one. they tried to talk me into a ridiculously priced external drive. I went to walmart and bought a reasonably priced external hard drive. :

If your internal drive is indeed physically damaged, (which is possible, but it is more likely that the motherboard/processor sustained some damage from the liquid being spilled on it..and I assume you haven't yet taken it apart and cleaned the sugary mess off of the board) why buy an external drive? I would have though they would want you to replace the Internal drive with another one
February 14th, 2009, 03:20 PM
tiredofthis

No I cannot enter bios...I'm not sure if that is the keyboard not responding or the hard drive error. All liquids were cleaned out and I allowed the keyboard to dry 48 hours before installing it.
February 14th, 2009, 03:24 PM
tiredofthis

Quote:

Originally Posted by geoscomp

If your internal drive is indeed physically damaged, (which is possible, but it is more likely that the motherboard/processor sustained some damage from the liquid being spilled on it..and I assume you haven't yet taken it apart and cleaned the sugary mess off of the board) why buy an external drive? I would have though they would want you to replace the Internal drive with another one

I thought if the motherboard was damaged the computer would not respond at all...it is getting all the way to the windows startup (from the windows boot cd) - I just can't get it to repair or reinstall windows. I also thought it was strange for them to push an external drive - but the whole conversation was really wierd.
February 14th, 2009, 03:28 PM
tiredofthis

Quote:

Originally Posted by MobilePCPhysician

Put the internal drive back in. Leave the external drive un-plugged. Insert the recovery/restore/windows xp disc in the cd rom. Boot from the cd and set up Windows. It should see your previous installation of Windows. Select the repair option. Follow the prompts until it finishes.

Make sure all liquids are out of the laptop.

Liquids have been cleaned out for weeks. I have already tried that and the cd will not boot - and I can't get to the bios.
February 14th, 2009, 03:49 PM
CCT

Have you tried pressisng F12 during boot to get into boot order and make sure the CD is selected for boot before the HD?

Have you tried pulling the Cmos battery to reset Bios to defaults?

If you have data you REALLY want to save, pulling the HD and slaving it would be a GOOOD THING now!
February 14th, 2009, 03:59 PM
tiredofthis

Quote:

Originally Posted by CCT

Have you tried pressisng F12 during boot to get into boot order and make sure the CD is selected for boot before the HD?

Have you tried pulling the Cmos battery to reset Bios to defaults?

If you have data you REALLY want to save, pulling the HD and slaving it would be a GOOOD THING now!

I have tried f12 & can't get into bios-the hal.dll error pops up.

I did take the battery out - I'm not sure what cmos is, so if it's something other than th regular battery let me know.

I thought that I was slaving by taking out my internal and only using external. I do need the information on there. (forgive me - Im one of those people who knows just enough to be dangerous)
February 14th, 2009, 04:13 PM
CCT

I think F2 gets you into Bios and F12 gets you into boot order.

In any event, if the data on the HD is important, and if you are NOT really good with comps (to slave a laptop internal drive you either need and external casing OR some special adapters for connecting into a desktop), then I suggest you pull the drive and take it to a shop and get the data copied to cd's.

The Cmos battery is a 25 cent-piece sized battery somewhere inside your laptop.

Your manual should show where.
February 15th, 2009, 01:32 AM
MobilePCPhysician

It sounds like you have no keyboard functions working. You could take it to a shop and let them recover the data off the drive. They may also be able to replace the keyboard and hopefully breathe new life into the laptop.

However, with the cost of laptops today, you may be better off just buying a new laptop.
February 15th, 2009, 03:10 PM
NooNoo

Did you remove the keyboard entirely ... undoing the ribbon cable? It's possible that it didn't go back in correctly or there is stuff on the ribbon cable.

Do you have accidental damage on your house insurance policy? If so, see if the laptop is covered.