Missing or corrupt hal.dll file ( windows cannot start )

[beeej21]

Hello all!
Just bought a Western Digital SATA 160GB drive intending to use it as a secondary OS drive connected to my ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mobo. I currently have a 80GB Maxtor SATA already connected and running fine.
I am able to see the new drive in the BIOS. The system recognizes the new drive instantly as connected to a second SATA port on the mobo.
I am also able to install Windows XP Pro sp2 without any problem onto the drive ( no partitions, and a full reformat ). But after the entire OS installation is done, and I go to restart, I get this message on a black screen:

"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"

I have tried reinstalling using a smaller partition, I've even tried switching the SATA cables to another one. I've also tried any of the other 3 available SATA connections on the motherboard, all with the same results.I even went so far as to exchange the hard drive for another one thinking I got a defective drive.

I am able to boot into the other hard drive OS without a fuss.

Can someone please help me figure out my problem? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[firewolfrl]

this should work....
on your Motherboard driver's disk you should be able to boot the disk and create a driver's floppy of the SATA drivers (might say RAID)

make sure you only have one harddrive installed before the next steps

the easiest bet is to start the XP install CD and push F6 when promted in the beginning... load the SATA driver that you just made. Then run through and do a fresh install (make sure you delete the drive then format the drive as prompted in windows)

after that it should work

It just sounds as though windows is not loading the SATA controller driver at first boot.

 

[linney]

Is there a problem with your boot.ini file? When you installed the XP SP2 to the new drive, was the other older SATA drive still connected and available to Setup? Were there any booting problems with the numerous reboots that occur during Setup?

Some similar stories here.

http://www.google.com/search?q=system32\hal.dll+++sata+xp&rls=com.microsoft:

http://groups.google.com/groups?um=...s=com.microsoft:&q=system32\hal.dll +sata+xp