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I have just bought an Acer Aspire one with Windows XP notebook. I have tried to switch it on and the following comes up – “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: system32hal.dll. Please re-install a copy of the above file.” How do I do this as no back up software was supplied with the notebook.
You have what is called an OEM machine, which stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. These are computers that have a deal with operating system manufacturers and ship their products with the software already installed. Because you don't purchase Windows separately, you don't usually get any Windows XP CDs when you get your notebook. As you've found out, this can be a problem.
The hal.dll is an error with the technology and drivers that let the Windows operating system communicate with the notebook's hardware. Hal stands for hardware abstraction layer, and this error usually occurs when you are upgrading Windows or you install Windows XP on a hard disk that doesn't have an operating system on it.
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The general solution to this dll error is to uninstall Windows XP and then reinstall it from the disk. But wait, that's where you have your problem - there is no restore disk with your Aspire notebook. If you'd had this notebook for awhile, I'd tell you to try to get another install disk, either by borrowing one from somebody or buying a third party install disk from a site such as Bootdisk. The fact that this is a new notebook changes things a little bit.
It's possible that you have an inherent problem with this notebook that you need to address before the warranty runs out. Hal.dll errors are usually easily fixed, but they can indicate an improper installation of the operating system or a problem with the partitions. If you are still under warranty, I would contact Acer and demand that they either fix the issues or replace the laptop. They will sell you a recovery disk from their website here. Click on the link for eRecovery CD Purchase and they will ask for the serial number for your machine. At the very least, they should send you a free copy of the recovery disk.
The last thing you want to do is start your relationship with your notebook on a sour note. You can get an install disk and reinstall Windows Xp, but if it were me and I'd just purchased this notebook, I'd get Acer to fix it rather than do it myself.
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Kat Delong | November 20th, 2008
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I too have just purchased an Acer Aspire One. Straight out of the box I get the same error!
There's one problem with this solution: The Acer Aspire One has no disk drive at all, so it doesn't matter if you have a copy of Windows on disk. I have one and have been trying to boot from the disk using a USB DVD drive (Memorex DVD+-RAM 530L v1) but it doesn't seem to want to let the disk boot, even after setting the drive to be first in the BIOS boot sequence; the boot sequence starts, then just goes right to that same error. How do I get it to boot from the DVD drive?
Peter,
Here's some additional information that should help:
http://filetonic.com/blog/2009/07/13/booting-from-an-external-disk-drive/
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The Aspire One comes with a recovery partition. You can just press down alt+F10 during boot (just after the BIOS screen) to get into the recovery tool, it will restore a factory install of Windows XP (you lose all your data, of course).
This seems a common problem with the Aspire One, I'm not sure what's causing it. We have one with the same problem. I've already sent it through Acer support and had the hard disk replaced, but it still happens...
ya, i had this problem for a while, and then suddenly it pops up and i couldnt get around it: i am doing the atl-F10 right now, it sucks but i didnt have a lot on the lil netbook: i am surprised that others are having this problem also: well see what happens