<windows root>\system32\hal.dll file is corrupt or missing

A few years ago, my mom sent me a laptop for Christmas with Windows XP Pro installed on it. She was smart enough to send me disks (yay mom!). A few days later, I could no longer boot my computer. It would get to the XP Pro screen, flash a blue screen (were talking milliseconds here) and reboot itself, effectively going into a never ending loop. x.x

I tried everything that I knew and in the end, wound up formatting the computer-I didnt have any important files/programs to begin with.

Now I get the system32hal.dll file is corrupt or missing message. -.-

Ive tried all of the solutions posted in other threads/on other sites.

This includes:
1. Place your Windows XP CD into your CD-ROM and Reboot your PC

2. XPs setup program will automatically start and files will be loaded to memory

3. When you reach the Welcome to Setup screen choose the Repair option by pressing R

4. This will start the Recovery console and the list of Windows installations will appear

5. As you only have one installation on your PC you need to press the number which is relevant to your installations location. This, obviously will typically be 1

6. Type in your Administrator password. If you are using Windows XP Home edition the administrator password is blank by default so simply press Enter

7.Now type bootcfg/list

8. A list will now appear of all the entries in your boot.ini file

9. Next type bootcfg/rebuild

10. Your boot.ini file should now be repaired

11. Finally remove your XP CD from the CD-ROM and then type Exit

(which reboots my computer and brings me to the same message).

Ive also tried: expand d:i386hal.dl_ c:windowssystem32hal.dll

Which gives me the message that the file couldnt be copied or created or something.

Ive tried:
1. Insert and boot from your Windows XP CD.
2. When you receive the "Press any key to boot from CD" message, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD-ROM.
3. When you receive the "Welcome to Setup" message, press R to start the Recovery Console.
4. Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair, typically this will be #1.
5. Type bootcfg /list to show the current entries in the BOOT.INI file. At this point you may get a message telling you that the boot.ini file does not exist. The next step will correct this error.
6. Type bootcfg /rebuild to repair it. This will scan your hard dives for installations of Windows XP, 2000 or NT and display the results. Follow the on-screen instructions to add your Windows installations to the boot.ini file. Those step will be:
1. Total Identified Windows Installs: 1
(1) C:Windows
Add installation to boot list? (Yes/No/All)
Type y and hit enter
2. Enter Load Identifier
This is the name of the operating system. When you receive this message, type the name of your operating system, and then press ENTER.
3. Enter OS Load options
When you receive this message, type /fastdetect, and then press ENTER.

Note: The instructions that appear on your screen may be different, depending on the configuration of your computer.
7. Take out the CD ROM and type exit.

Which, brings be right back to the initial error message.

So...now what do I do? I can purchase Vista for this computer (moms disks were rips of the originals) and hope that it fixes it but...is it worth it? Am I going to need an entirely new hard drive?

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[Source: Webmaster Forum - Posted by Kishore Vengala]