hal.dll missing or corrupt and I can't run recovery console

July 8, 2012 11:45 AM

hal.dll is missing or corrupt on a Windows 98 install. But I have no system recovery disk and can't enter recovery console? This is a legit copy of windows, came installed on the computer when it was new, I have all the documentation and so forth, but from what I can discover online, it's from a vintage of Dell computers (it's an XPS 630) where they just want you to call Dell customer service and follow their directions. Halp.

I have a "drivers and utilities" disk that I can boot to, but it does not seem to have recovery console; it just lets me run a zillion tests on all my hardware. It does let me in to some kind of limited partition on the C:\ drive using DOS. There seem to be some kind of Dell system tools available from there, but it warns only to use them when following Dell support instructions, and it's not obvious what they are or how they work.

My computer-fu is not strong enough to deal with this. Can I fix this myself or do I need to call in the cavalry (i.e., my computer guy)?

NEARLY all of the data on this harddrive is backed up, but not QUITE all of it, so loss of data is a non-preferred outcome. The computer in question has two DVD drives but no floppy drive, and we do not have a USB floppy drive.

(I'm working on a laptop running Vista, if that matters.)

posted by Eyebrows McGee to Technology (8 answers total)

All need not be lost. Do you have another working computer someplace that you can use to burn a CD? If you do, you can create a bootable Linux CD that will let you boot the PC, mount the HDs and copy off (over the network or onto one of your DVD drives) any remaining data that wasn't caught in the last backup cycle.

I used to use knoppix for this, but nearly all of the popular Linux distributions have a "livecd" version that works this same way (and there are even recovery-specific CDs like this one).

There are also recover disk images out there that can be downloaded and burnt to a CD or DVD. One is here. Download the ISO, burn it off and boot your Dell with it. I'd back up the data first if possible, though.
posted by jquinby at 12:20 PM on July 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

jquinby has got it - boot with knoppix, get the files, smash computer to ground.
posted by k8t at 1:02 PM on July 8, 2012

Best answer: From a little Googling, it looks like this hal.dll message may be a red herring, and (instead of pointing to the culprit) might indicate that not all is well with your computer. In one case, it was the message that showed up when a hard drive was dying. So I would begin by NOT assuming that you merely need to get a new copy of hal.dll to replace the (allegedly) corrupted or missing one on your computer. I would suggest what the others have already: get those files off your hard drive! An alternative to their methods is physically removing the hard drive and connecting it to another computer, such as your laptop, perhaps with a USB adapter. If you don't feel comfortable with any of this, yeah, just give it to your computer guy.
posted by exphysicist345 at 5:39 PM on July 8, 2012

Response by poster: Well, I'm certainly going to get the files off of there one way or another!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:59 PM on July 8, 2012

Another option - if your dodgy laptop supports booting from a USB thumb drive, you can use UNetbootin to create a bootable USB drive pretty easily. It'll even download a distribution for you, but if you want to give Knoppix a run, it'll create a bootable USB drive from the ISO file as well. Just for kicks, I just ran through the process now and it worked like a charm. Once your back on the network and able to see your old HD, you can drag and drop the files off to a local share, burn them to a CD, drag them to dropbox, whatever.
posted by jquinby at 6:39 PM on July 8, 2012

Best answer: Yeah, like exphysicist345 says, hal.dll is usually a red herring. Even if you were to replace the missing file (and I've tried!) then it would just be another system file that's missing. What hal.dll really means is that the Windows installation is severely corrupt, unbootable and will need to be reinstalled after your files are safely copied off it. If this happens on a formerly working computer, then usually it's because the hard drive is dying. Like the others have said, finish backing up your data first.

Then you can decide whether you want to try fixing it or not. (Which would probably need a replacement hard drive, a hard drive wipe/format and windows reinstall)
posted by Aliera at 7:01 PM on July 8, 2012

Files usually don't corrupt on their own. I think Aliera has it pretty much nailed down, but I have to say that the root cause of the corruption is likely to be bad sectors on the hard drive.
posted by morecoffeeplease at 4:04 AM on July 9, 2012

Response by poster: Where we're at this morning is getting a new internal hard drive, a new external HD for backups that will fit in our firesafe, and then having our computer guy come rescue the files and put in the new internal drive. I *think* I could manage the file rescue myself, having read the instructions you guys linked, but I don't want to risk the data and if the drive itself is likely bad, I'm just going to go ahead and get a new drive and have my computer guy do it. Thank you for the help, this turned out to be a little more involved than I thought. :(
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:29 AM on July 9, 2012