IT- hal.dll?

[behappystupi]

So, starting my daily routine this afternoon I turn on my computer. All is going well..Until..pop! missing or corrupted file, hal.dll . Did I mention I just put a new drive in my computer a couple days ago? Doing some research I learn this file is often deleted whilst other programs. It'll also cause problems when running dual boot, which I don't.

I tried using my Windows XP installation disk and doing a repair but for some reason it doesn't ask me for an Admin's password so I get access denied when trying to install the file. I don't want to have to re-install XP again, I just did 3 days ago .

So my questions are..

How do I mannualy 'log in' to the recovery console to install the file? and is there another way to go about doing this?

Thanks for any help.

[behappystupi]

Thats what I'll probably end up doing..

I'm running AVG Free and Windows Defender.. Oh, and whatever SP2 offers security wise.

[behappystupi]

New Question.

Ok, so the first time I installed this drive and installed XP, I made a partition of about 127GB because thats all I could do at the time. Keep in mind, this is a 320GB Hard Drive..

I was thinking I didn't need drivers because I have a bridge connection between my motherboard-IDE- and my Hard Drive-SATA-

Well once I get XP loaded up, I find more partition space so I add that to the current partition. Then it read 298GB Total Capacity with no more unallocated space.

I can see losing 2-5 GB's through advertising but 20? Something isn't right.

The HDD manual said something about 48 bit BIOS? I did some exploration and found I have 32. How do I upgrade this? New Mobo? If so, I think I can live with 300 GB's for now

[wmah]

for reference here is what my 160 external drive shows. And yours is about twice the size as my so it may be right.


used space 50,279,231,488 bytes 46.8 GB
free space 109,760,008,192 bytes 102 GB

Capacity 160,039,239,680 bytes 149 GB

[swinada]

This is normal. Hard drive manufacturer's definition of a gigabyte is 1000 MB, while a computer reads a gigabyte as 1024MB. It's a marketing ploy to make their hard drives seem larger in size. They produced 320GB drives to satisfy disgruntled customers, who bought 300GB drives and only saw something like 280GB. Upping the size to 320GB to see a full 300GB was their answer and solved the problem...well, kind of, anyway. Hopefully you know what I mean.

this topic has been discussed to great lengths on other forums, read this http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum...fm/597604.html for any other possible causes of your problem.

[behappystupi]

Thanks Swinada, thats my hard drive..

I got Xp back on. Now I have a power problem, but thats a different thing entirely so I'll just stop it here.

Thanks guys.

[swinada]

whats your powerproblem?
If a PC starts acting up in a way that all of sudden you start having all these weird problems, missing files, shut downs, shut downs during start up, unable to install software etc. and your sure you dont have a virus, check your RAM.
A bad memory stick can cause all of the above and more. If you have more then on stick of memory remove all but one and see if problems persist, then switch around to the next stick and so on. If you only got one stick try to borrow a compatible one from somebody or an other PC you got and test your system.
You can also down load some free memory test software like memtest at http://www.memtest.org
Good luck

[behappystupi]

Well I don't think my current PCU can get enough watts to power everything I have set up. Before I bought this SATA I had an IDE in there that came with the PC and the only extra thing I did was add an Exhaust fan and that worked just fine. With this new HDD I was having problems getting the HDD to boot so I unplugged the exhaust fan, made sure everything was tight and powered it on.

I think I just had a loose SATA cable, I'll try plugging my exhaust fan back in.


edit: I ave 1.5GB's of RAM. 1 1GB stick, 1 512