Utility to fix "missing or corrupted HAL.DLL" in Bootcamp

To trust Parallels with my Bootcamp partition, I need a utility to restore system files like HAL.DLL that Parallels replaces on each boot. Let's face it: s**t happens, especially on Windows. Maybe the OS crashes, maybe I run out of power, maybe I get pulled into an unscheduled meeting and return to find Windows has suspended itself due to inactivity. In any of these cases, critical system files might not be replaced by a clean shutdown. Parallels needs a utility to replace these files in emergency situations, like a Bootcamp partition rescue utility.

Is there anything like this in the works? I would love to here from the Parallels team on this one.

 

No interest on this one? Or is it simply impossible?

As long as Parallels knows which sytem files it replaced, I don't see why a utility can't simply re-replace them.

 

I'm seeing this error, too, on a MacBook Pro with 4 GB RAM. I can still startup Boot Camp by arrowing down to the Windows XP selection in the initial black screen with white text. The default however (without arrowing) gives the hal.dll error message. Also, Parallels still boots, as well.

Will either or both quit booting?

This entire machine purchase was based on being able to use both Boot Camp and Parallels.

 

My Bootcamp partition is Vista, so I don't see an option to select a Partition. My only options are Last Good Configuration, Safe Mode, Normal, an all the rest.

In my case, Bootcamp never booted again, even after an ordlery Parallels shutdown. So I re-installed.

Do you always get these warnings, even after an orderly Parallels shutdown?

 

I saw this for the first time today on a faculty member's machine. He's doing some major crunching in UCINET software, i.e. large data sets. Only runs in Windows, hence the need for both here, so he can do presentations on the Mac side and pull crunched data from the Win side. He didn't realize that the Boot Camp default is always to boot from Windows, unless you hold down the option key for the picker. Ditto for his external backup drive; Windows had to be the first partition... So he was getting the error message on every startup. I noticed in a Safe Mode-like select screen that there was a second option called Windows XP, and that booted OK in Boot Camp, but you have to arrow down to it, to avoid the hal.dll error. I don't recall now (at home) what the first option was called, nor which aligned with Boot Camp or Parallels.

Parallels also boots OK without any error message. However, I've cautioned the user to back up any work done under either Win config, at least and until we get this stabilized.

I have a Vista VM in my own Parallels config without Boot Camp, but rarely use it, since performance with the Win XP VM is reportedly a lot better. While I'm interested in Vista as an OS, etc., I'm driven more by performance for my own IT work.

The way Parallels 3 shuts down, they all seem to be orderly, or maybe it's the way I set the configs. I didn't see the same (safe mode style) options that you did.

In all fairness, I have to say that my experiences with Parallels (without Boot Camp) have been much smoother, with occasional hiccups at major updates, sometime due to my own configs. I have been rescued several times by posts on these Parallels forums, for which I'm very grateful. Let's hope this hal.dll problem is resolvable, and soon!

 

We have plans to develop this utility later. I'll control it.

 

Cool. Would you recommend, then, that I not use Parallels with Bootcamp until this utility comes out? And, the inevitable, are there any targets for when that might be? Must be pretty far out, if you haven't even started it.

 

Thanks for this info, Ynot. Any suggestions on using XP or Vista in Boot Camp with Parallels would be much appreciated.

As far as I can tell, this isn't serious with XP, although increasing the delay time at picker screen starting up Boot Camp would be helpful. I hear that the delay time can be increased with NTLoader? Or, having it auto-select the second option (Windows XP) would resolve this.

 

Yeah, i noticed this today. Windows crashed (can you believe it?). Instead of rebooting in Parallels, I actually rebooted in Bootcamp (was testing video performance with and without parallels).

Now bootcamp always defaults to loading the "Parallels Configuration" which has the missing HAL.DLL error mentioned above. Manually selecting the second option solves the problem.

PS. I also had to re-activate windows in both Parallels and Bootcamp modes. PITA!

 

i'm stuck with this problem and a broken vista now.

any hints how to manually fix this issue?

i tried uninstalling the parallels tools and reinstalled the boot camp drivers, but whatever start option i select it just BSOD's over and over.

i couldn't believe it when i read that parallels switches settings that are destined to fubar your system on a crash.

i just bought parallels 2 days ago. gonna take it back to my vendor and trade it in for a fusion license.

i was hoping to be able to play eve-online - doesnt really work
or use media player for DRM protected videos - doesnt work at all

i'm on leave since monday and was hoping to play some games, first the disappointment of the 3D support, then the broken boot camp installation, and i don't even have an installation cd/dvd at home so i have to get back to the office.

THANK YOU PARALLELS, you ruined my day!

 

@neongrau

I've been playing EVE in parallels with no touble what so ever since 3.0 came out as I know many others have. If you posted your problems here you might get help fixing your issue?

The same goes for your mentioned 3D support trouble. If you do not give any details you will not receive any help.

 

you're the first i hear of that can play it

-> in windowed mode the mouse pointer is totally offset, so only fullscreen is possible this wouldn't be a big problem if the login screen wouldn't run in a window
-> T&L seems to be off, so everything is totally dark, stations in space are near invisible
-> when rotating the camera around the ship the camera suddenly jumps around makes controlling the ship nearly impossible, ok for skilling and some market transactions. but playing? no way!
-> UI is lacking borders all the way
-> char portraits are mostly (not always) rendered wrong (black silhouettes only)

this is on a 2.4ghz 4gig ram MBP with 256mb nvidia 8600GT

 

btw AngryAnt, could you please post a screenshot of the game?
would love to see how it looks on your machine.

 

@neaongrau,

I had "some" luck by using my Vista Ultimate disk to "upgrade" my Vista Ultimate partition to Vista Ultimate, but this only worked once. The next time I toasted my bootcamp partition, I had to repave.

I pre-ordered Fusion but I'm waiting for VMWare to solve their Vista activation issues before I use it. The Fusion team says Vista Bootcamp support is experimental until they figure out how to stop Vista from asking you to re-activate each time you switch from the VM to the Bootcamp boot.

Neither solution is ideal for now. Parallels is great, until your first dirty shutdown. However, I've read similar complaints about Fusion.

 

i've spent half of the day in the office trying to get the vista installation fixed. but no luck.
strange thing is that now the activation doesn't even work anymore. seems like Microsoft now locked our corporate volume license key *!#*!?#*! <-(insert some nasty curses towards redmond here).

i'm now fed up with vista and reinstalling XP on the boot camp partition. and i won't touch it with parallels this time.

 

and btw. here's a quote from the vmware forums where somone asked if fusion is as dangerous to boot camp as parallels:

"...Fusion takes a different approach to Boot Camp in a virtual machine based on our architecture. Since ... Fusion defaults to the same ACPI, power management HAL when in a virtual machine as the Boot Camp partition already has installed, we do NOT need to modify boot.ini or replace the HAL to make a Boot Camp partition work properly in a VM. ..."

 

Hey! That was me who asked the question that got that response from one of the Fusion people.

Like I said, though. Fusion still has Vista+Bootcamp issues.

 

Last night I also developed this problem where I can't boot into Boot Camp without quickly down-arrowing to the normal (non-Parallels) selection. Otherwise, I get the "bad hal.dll" message.

THis happened because I ran out of disk space installing something in OS X while Parallels was running using my Boot Camp partition. Parallels shut down abnormally, with some kind of message. I was frantically trying to shut down other apps, delete files, and make some room on the drive, so I didn't write down the message.

After cleaning things up, I tried launching Parallels again, but it only found an earlier Windows XP virtual machine I had set up before Parallels enabled use of the Boot Camp partition. Unfortunately, I can't even SEE the Boot Camp partition as an available virtual machine in Parallels.

Thinking something was wrong with Boot Camp, I downloaded the latest Boot Camp software and drivers from Apple (v. 1.4), reinstalled XP and loaded the latest Mac drivers. Now I can boot normally in Boot Camp, but Parallels still doesn't "see" the Boot Camp partition.

Do I have to reinstall Parallels too??? I have Parallels 3.0, Build 4560.

 

@neongrau

EVE running full-screen in coherence (I prefer it this way with the menu bar in the top):

EVE on OS X

I have some graphical glitches like suns are not rendered properly, progress bars are taller than they should be and white plus the warp effect looks different, but otherwise the game is fully playable - the problems you're talking about I've never seen.

My setup is a mbp core duo 2ghz with 1.5gb ram. I run XP in parallels through my bootcamp partition (still without incident @ the people having HAL.DLL trouble), direct X support is enabled, VM has as much vram available as can be given by parallels and 512mb ram.

You spoke of other 3D problems?

 

Please help, my native boot to "Boot Camp" no longer works. I get the "hal.dll error". It boots through Parallels but no more natively. Also at the option window, it lets me choose the windows partition, but immediately goes to "error message" without the drop down to choose parallels or windows config.