The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Problem with MediaDirect

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by mitchellk345, Aug 7, 2006.

  1. mitchellk345

    mitchellk345 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    5
    Messages:
    33
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Ok... I have finally be able to get MediaDirect to install on my computer. I have repaired it an everything but whenever press the MediaDirect button I keep getting an error that says that there is a missing or corrupt file. The file it is missing is <windows root>\system32\hal.dll

    Does anyone have any idea how to get past this problem?

    I have tryed to reformat and everything...
     
    mitchellk345, Aug 7, 2006
    #1
  2. Amber

    Amber Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    1,659
    Messages:
    5,066
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    You need to copy the hal.dll file to your C:\Windows\System32 folder. This file should be located on your XP disc (afaik). If not, I know some sites have .dll files available for download.
     
    Amber, Aug 7, 2006
    #2
  3. teamgreen02

    teamgreen02 Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    If you can't get it to work, request the Media Direct cd from Dell. Reformating again will be the easiest way to set the hard drive up for installing it, but if you have Partition Magic you can probably set the hard drive up.
     
    teamgreen02, Aug 7, 2006
    #3
  4. mitchellk345

    mitchellk345 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    5
    Messages:
    33
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    I have a copy of Hal.dll in system32 but it still doesnt boot... So, I reformatted and it does the same thing. I think i found something on this site saying that it has something to do with the boot.ini file but I don't know how to fix it
     
    mitchellk345, Aug 9, 2006
    #4
  5. Amber

    Amber Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    1,659
    Messages:
    5,066
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    Amber, Aug 9, 2006
    #5
  6. postmortem

    postmortem Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    -1
    Messages:
    135
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    hal.dll (hardware abstraction layer) is one of first files loaded during Windows boot-up. I think his Media Direct confguration is simply still corrupted. That message is common when boot loader is looking at wrong partition.
     
    postmortem, Aug 9, 2006
    #6
  7. mbushnaq00

    mbushnaq00 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    23
    Messages:
    333
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I think u will need to repair the hal.dll in the MediaDirect partition, repairing it while u r in windows will give u no use.
     
    mbushnaq00, Aug 9, 2006
    #7
  8. e1505vdo

    e1505vdo Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I think i need to pick this old topic up as it happened to me just yesterday :(
    i accidentally hit the Media Direct button when power was OFF, then i exited from MD and pushed the power buttion to turn it ON

    Then appears the message of <window root>\system32\hal.dll missing or corrupt

    I tried almost all solutions i can find, none of them work.
    When i entered the Recovery Console, the prompt command starts with F:\minint and when I used the bootcfg /rebuild command, it indicates windows installation at F:\minint

    Do I need to reinstall everything? Is there anyone can help me out? thanks
     
    e1505vdo, Apr 29, 2007
    #8