Hal.dll missing or corrupt after attempted repair

[mrlarryj]

Ok, after I was told I couldn't do a "repair install" on a nonbooting OS, I'm trying this . I had a dual boot box (XP and Win 7 Home Premium). All was fine. After a Windows update the Home premium quit working so I just did a clean install again. All was fine. Then while away on business the Home Premium quit again. When I got home I tried all the repairs that normally work. Then I tried everything I could think of. Which finally got me to the hal.dll missing or corrupt. I made a new Partition and installed Win 7 Pro. That install, along with my XP, is working fine. So I'm now back to trying to get my Home Premium to boot. Everything appears to be intact and in order, but still getting the error, hal.dll missing or corrupt, which I believe is 0x00000098. I'll correct that if I'm wrong. Any (good) ideas? Btw, I've been repairing 'puters for 20+ years, but I know that there are people out there that know more than I, and experience in different areas, so I'm hoping... Thanks much.
P.S. I did some looking around about the problem here, but was advised to start my own thread as the other ones were so old.

 

[samuria]

Very often halisnt missing but the path to it is set wrong check its in the correct folder

 

[townsbg]

I've had that happen before on a work laptop and the hard drive was dying. You might want to scan it.

 

[mrlarryj]

Very often halisnt missing but the path to it is set wrong check its in the correct folder

Thanks samuria, yeah, the file is there.

 

[mrlarryj]

I've had that happen before on a work laptop and the hard drive was dying. You might want to scan it.

Thanks townsbg, I thought of that, but the HDD appears to be ok.

 

[mrlarryj]

Update: Well, after some fiddling I got past the hal.dll missing. Now it boots to the pulsating Windows logo after the 4 dots merge, says starting windows, sits there a short time then reboots. If I disable restart after system failure I get a BSOD with stop error 0x0000008e. No other hints in the BSOD.

 

[Paul Black]

Hi mrlarryj,

Update: Well, after some fiddling I got past the hal.dll missing. Now it boots to the pulsating Windows logo after the 4 dots merge, says starting windows, sits there a short time then reboots. If I disable restart after system failure I get a BSOD with stop error 0x0000008e. No other hints in the BSOD.

BSOD - Posting Instructions => BSOD - Posting Instructions.

 

[erpster4]

Update: Well, after some fiddling I got past the hal.dll missing. Now it boots to the pulsating Windows logo after the 4 dots merge, says starting windows, sits there a short time then reboots. If I disable restart after system failure I get a BSOD with stop error 0x0000008e. No other hints in the BSOD.

doing a quick google search on stop error 0x0000008e indicates the following

bad or faulty RAM (memory) chips - run a memory diagnostic tool like Memtest86 (get the free version) to see if the RAM chips are working ok. if errors suddenly occur when running Memtest86, have the memory chips replaced.

another issue - bad or outdated video/graphics drivers. update those. if using the latest video drivers does not help in solving that problem, then the video or graphics card may need to be replaced.

 

[mrlarryj]

Thanks erpster4. Sorry, I was away on business. I haven't done a memory check in a while. My video is built in.
After some more chkdsk, offline sfc, and running Easy RE 3 times, I did (another) BCD rebuild from the Win 7 disk and the partition was there !! It is listed as active and boot. I added it, along with the other installs. It was added as the default boot . I thought I might just be in luck. But no... same result as before - goes to the colored dots (starting windows), the pulsating Windows logo... then reboots. Back to the drawing board.