Variant on hal.dll problem

Hi all - I've hunted about for a solution to this one - here, on Google, all over the place, but I can't find that anyone else has experienced the same thing.

I installed XP via Bootcamp in February 2007 and have been running this Bootcamp partition under Parallels 2.5 (build 3214 currently) with hardly any problems ever since. A couple of times I had the hal.dll error in Parallels, but after opening XP directly via Bootcamp, the error went away.

A while back, for no apparent reason, I started getting the hal.dll error when accessing the partition directly via Bootcamp - but when I access the exact same install via Parallels, everything is fine. I've tried overwriting the file with a fresh version, but to no avail. And it's obvious that there's actually nothing wrong with the install because Parallels runs like a charm. I haven't touched the partitions since I installed it.

I'm running a 2.16Ghz MacBook Pro with 2Gb of RAM. XP Service Pack 3 (although was SP 2 when the problem started - CS4 refused to install without SP3). Tiger 10.4.9.

Anybody got any ideas on this one? All suggestions gratefully received!

 

Try method 4 here when running in BootCamp, not Parallels.
Error message: "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem"


If you need to install the Recovery Console:
How to install the Recovery Console

If you get the error due to your CD not being SP3, try
You receive an error message if you try to install the Recovery Console on a Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2-based computer

...or slipstream SP3.

There's a tech note on this site, that you get to here http://kb.parallels.com/ with the search term 'slipstream'.
How to integrate (slipstream) Windows XP Service Pack 3 in installation CD.

or you can google it. Not a bad thing to have on hand anyway.

 

here's a simple way to slipstream SP3 if you need it
http://www.digitgeek.com/slipstream-service-pack-3-in-windows-xp-installation/

and http://www.nliteos.com/