Also may help with system restore when system restore doesn't work in normal or safe mode. 

You can also do this repair with a Live cd like Bart's PE or UBCD4Win disk. If you have one of these click the link for your type of disk for instructions.

If you have a hall.dll error upon boot up try this article first. Click here to fix your hal.dll error.

 

Note: This troubleshooting step is usually used for the specific issue indicated above but it may also work for BSOD issues which recently occurred and you're unable to boot to either safe mode or normal mode.

Important! Stop and read this. Before starting this process, Please do yourself a favor and stick your head by your computer and listen. If you hear a louder than usual click noise that's out of the ordinary, "SHUT OFF YOUR COMPUTER" and do not restart it till you can make a backup of your drive. This may be the clunk of death for your hard drive.

Click here to read about the Click or Clunk of death in a hard drive.

 

Okay now lets get started.

A: First, The basics. You will need a Windows XP CD. If you only have a recovery disk set like the ones from a HP or Compaq, they will not do what you want. You can normally use a Dell disk, also retail box disks (XP Purchased from the store), or some OEM versions of XP will work (most of these will have the Microsoft hologram on them). You can also download a boot up Floppy disk set from Microsoft here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994   There are a few other places with bootable CDs on the net, but the easiest thing to do if you don't h