Invalid Boot.INI File

[brit405]

I hope that someone can help me with this problem that my kids computer is having. Everytime that I turn my kids computer on a message comes on the screen saying Invalid Boot.INI file. it says its booting from C:\windows\ Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <windows root>\system32hal.dll please re-install a copy of the above file. I don't have a cd or disk to do this. If I go on to hit a key on the keyboard another screen appears and at the bottom it has F1=setup F10=System Recovery. Do I need to hit either one of these keys? I'm currently using my laptop, is there anything that I can do from it to fix the problem. I'm really unsure what to do next. Thanks in advance for any HELP!

 

[EvanDavis]

I hope that someone can help me with this problem that my kids computer is having. Everytime that I turn my kids computer on a message comes on the screen saying Invalid Boot.INI file. it says its booting from C:\windows\ Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \system32hal.dll please re-install a copy of the above file. I don't have a cd or disk to do this. If I go on to hit a key on the keyboard another screen appears and at the bottom it has F1=setup F10=System Recovery. Do I need to hit either one of these keys? I'm currently using my laptop, is there anything that I can do from it to fix the problem. I'm really unsure what to do next. Thanks in advance for any HELP!

Hi and welcome to the forum

What OS is on your kids computer ? Best would be to do a reformat. Can you not borrow a disk from somebody ? As long as it is the same OS as on your kids machine you can do a reformat and use the product key that came with the machine. Which should be on the back or side. Thats assuming it not a custom built PC. Failing that and not been able to get another disk, you could go down the line of one of the many free Linux distros.