In the computer systems, the hard drives are divided into logical parts, called partitions, that seem as if there are distinct hard disks altogether. Partitioning the hard drive serves some good purposes such as to keep the user data and program files separate from each other, or to keep important data away from the boot partition so that the data remains safe in case of data corruption. These cases can arise due to different issues such as virus infections, abrupt or unplanned system shutdowns, power outages, etc. In such cases, you should try to resolve the issue using appropriate resolving methods. If you are unable to do that, you should recover partitions using a third-party partition recovery software.

Let us assume that you have a Windows XP Service Pack 2 system. When you try to start it, you are unable to do so as the system halts after the boot process showing a black screen. The following error message is displayed on your 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.”

Cause:

There could be three reasons for this abnormal behavior at system startup. They are:

The Hal.dll and the Ntoskrnl.exe files are mismatched. There is corruption in the partition or the boot record. The boot partition is damaged due to corruption in the primary boot record, which is why the Hal.dll file and/or the Ntoskrnl.exe file have damaged. Resolution:

To resolve this problem, you can perform either of the following resolutions as per the specific cause:

You should repair the master boot record using the 'fixmbr' command in the Windows XP Recovery Console. You should scan the hard disks by using the 'chkdsk /r' command in the Windows XP Recovery Console. If the Ntoskrnl.exe and Hal.dll files are mismatched, then you should start the system from the Windows XP Setup CD in the Recovery Console and then use the 'Bootcfg.exe' tool to rebuild the boot.ini file.

Your problem would be solved using either of these methods in most of the cases. If it is not so, then you should use a third-party partition recovery software to get back all the trapped data in the system. These data recovery tools are able to recover partitions without causing any damage to the existing data.

The most efficient partition recovery software among similar tools is Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery, which is able to recover lost,deleted, or formatted data from FAT, NTFS, and exFAT file systems. With the ability to recover more than 185 different file types, this Windows data recovery software is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, 2000, NT4(SP6).