I cannot boot into WindowsXPHome. I get a STOP error stating that comdlg32.dll is possibly corrupt. I understand that the file needs to be removed, and replaced with a non-corrupted copy, but I don't know how to do that -- especially since I can't open Windows. I AM able to access the Lenovo Rescue and Recovery 3.0 software, but I am not sure whether I can fix the problem using Rescue and Recovery. Can you possibly advise me what to do? Thank you.

Causes of the missing or corrupt hal.dll error include, naturally, a damaged hal.dll DLL file or a hal.dll file that has been deleted or moved from its intended location. Additional causes may include a damaged or missing boot.ini file or possibly a physically damaged hard drive.

To fix it:
1) Restart your PC, sometimes the hall.dll error could be an error itself and your PC should boot up fine.
2) Go into the BIOS by pressing the Delete key as the laptop boots. Then navigate to disk boot priority and make sure this is set to your main hard drive (the one that has Windows installed on it). Save and exit the BIOS. Sometimes if you have a USB flash drive/Pen drive or external hard drive it may automatically switch the boot priority to that.
If these two quick steps don't fix the problem then head over to here and continue reading up about repairing the boot.ini file.

CauseCauses of the "missing or corrupt hal.dll" error include, naturally, a damaged hal.dll DLL file or a hal.dll file that has been deleted or moved from its intended location. Additional causes may include a damaged or missing boot.ini file or possibly a physically damaged hard drive.
Resolution

1. Restart the PC. The hal.dll error could be a fluke.
   
   
2. Check for proper boot order in BIOS. You might see the hal.dll error if the boot order in BIOS is first looking at a hard drive other than your main hard drive.
   
   Note: If you've recently changed your boot order or recently flashed your BIOS, this may be what's causing your problem.
   
   
3. Run Windows XP System Restore from a command prompt. If this doesn't work or you're receiving the hal.dll error message before you're able to complete this process, move on to the next step.
   
   
4. Repair or replace the boot.ini file. This will work if the cause of the problem is actually Windows XP's boot.ini file and not the hal.dll file, which is often times the case.
   
   Note: If repairing the boot.ini does correct the hal.dll issue but the problem reappears after a reboot and you've recently installed Internet Explorer 8 in Windows XP, uninstall IE8. In this specific situation, IE8 could be the root cause of your hal.dll problem.

i think there is a virus affected to your bios... did you have any antivirus prog preinstalled... need to flash your bios by downloading the file from other system and putting it tou your floppy... try i hope it will work

Yes it may be possible, installing and updating antivirus may have figured our corruption in urlmon.dll deleted the file or did some changes due to which you are getting the critical error

You can try 2 things,

1. Restore earlier settings, which may uninstall your antivirus and you need to install again. But if this works recommend you to first scan the system with free standalone antivirus availalable and then install your version of antivirus. Try following link

http://go.trendmicro.com/housecall7/HousecallLauncher.exe
http://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/products/rootkitbuster/RootkitBuster_2.80.1077.zip
2. Repair the URLMON.DLL file

1.Insert your Windows XP CD in your CD-ROM drive and boot your computer from the CD.
2.When the Welcome to Setup screen appears, press R to open the Recovery Console.
3.When prompted for an administrator password, type the password and then press Enter. In case no administrator password was set, just press Enter.
4.At the Command Prompt, type the following command and press Enter
cd %systemroot%\system32
5.Next, type the following command to rename the urlmon.dll file and press Enter.
ren urlmon.dll urlmon.old.dll
6.Now, to restore the original urlmon.dll, type the following command and press Enter.
expand [CD drive letter]:\i386\urlmon.dll %systemroot%\system32 /Y
7.Next, type exit and press Enter.
8.Restart your computer.

3. Repair complete OS. You will need XP CD
Boot from CD and follow the instructions to repair the OS

Hello,

• "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
  <Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
  Please re-install a copy of the above file."
  
  
• "<Winnt_root>\System32\Hal.dll missing or corrupt:
  Please re-install a copy of the above file."
  
  
• "Cannot find \Windows\System32\hal.dll"
  
  
• "Cannot find hal.dll"

The "missing or corrupt hal.dll" error displays shortly after the computer is first started. Windows XP has not yet fully loaded when this error message appears. CauseCauses of the "missing or corrupt hal.dll" error include, naturally, a damaged hal.dll DLL file or a hal.dll file that has been deleted or moved from its intended location.Additional causes may include a damaged or missing boot.ini file or possibly a physically damaged hard drive.

Please let me know you have any further questions or concerns.

Thanks.

Restart the PC. The hal.dll error could be a fluke.
Check for proper boot order in BIOS. You might see the hal.dll error if the boot order in BIOS is first looking at a hard drive other than your main hard drive.
Note: If you've recently changed your boot order or recently flashed your BIOS, this may be what's causing your problem.
Run Windows XP System Restore from a command prompt. If this doesn't work or you're receiving the hal.dll error message before you're able to complete this process, move on to the next step.
Repair or replace the boot.ini file. This will work if the cause of the problem is actually Windows XP's boot.ini file and not the hal.dll file, which is often times the case.
Note: If repairing the boot.ini does correct the hal.dll issue but the problem reappears after a reboot and you've recently installed Internet Explorer 8 in Windows XP, uninstall IE8. In this specific situation, IE8 could be the root cause of your hal.dll problem.
Write a new partition boot sector to the Windows XP system partition. If the partition boot sector has become corrupt or isn't properly configured, you may receive the hal.dll error.
Recover data from any bad sectors on your hard drive. If the physical part of your hard drive that stores any part of the hal.dll file has been damaged, you're likely to see errors like this.
Restore the hal.dll file from the Windows XP CD. If the hal.dll file is truly the cause of the problem, restoring it from the original Windows XP CD may do the trick.
Perform a repair installation of Windows XP. This type of installation should replace any missing or corrupt files. Continue troubleshooting if this does not resolve the issue.
Perform a clean installation of Windows XP. This type of installation will completely remove Windows XP from your PC and install it again from scratch.
Note: While this will almost certainly resolve any hal.dll errors, it is a time consuming process due to the fact that all of your data must be backed up and then later restored.

You may receive one of the following stop error messages while working on your Windows XP computer.
STOP: C0000221 unknown hard error
Path\File_nameSTOP: 0xC0000221 unknown hard error
C:\Winnt\System32\Ntdll.dll (or another specific file or driver)
STOP: 0xC0000221 STATUS_IMAGE_CHECKSUM_MISMATCH
Path\File_name
Note: The error message may be discussed in many different formats-blue screen or message box. It depends on when the corrupt file was detected.
Similarly, you may receive the following STOP messages when a critical system file fails to load on your Windows NT and Windows 2000 computer.
STOP: C0000221 unknown hard error
<path>\<file_name>STOP: 0xC0000221 unknown hard error
c:\winnt\system32\ntdll.dll
Note: Some other drive may also be given in the message.
On Windows 2000 the following error message may display:
STOP: 0xC0000221 STATUS_IMAGE_CHECKSUM_MISMATCH
<path>\<file_name>
You usually face this problem when an incorrect driver for one or more hardware is installed on your system. For instance, the error messages described above are displayed when you install a millions of instructions per second (MIPS) driver on a x86 system.
Cause of the Error
This error occurs if the file given in the error message is damaged.
Your Windows XP operating system checks the following files for integrity during system startup:

• All driver files, excluding the files that loaded using the system loader to start your system .
• All DLL (Dynamic Link Libraries) on the system. These include, Graphics Driver Interface (GDI), User, Ntdll, Crtdll, Shell, Kernel and several other DLL files on the system.
• On Windows NT and 2000 computers, all DLLs loaded in the Window server address space are also checked.

The problem may also occur if an Iomega Zip drive is connected to the same cable as your hard disk drive.
Resolution Method
You can resolve this issue by removing the corrupt driver from your computer and then reinstalling a fresh and healthy copy of the driver. You may need to use the Device Manager utility to remove the driver. It is recommended that you clean your registry with the help of a reliable tool, such as RegGenie to ensure that all entries related to the uninstalled driver are removed from the system. After you have completely removed the corrupt driver, restart your system and install a fresh copy of the driver on the system.
If this step does not resolve the problem, you may have to reinstall Windows XP.
It is recommended that you regularly clean your registry with the help of a registry cleaner tool and perform antivirus and antispyware scan using tools, such as Antivirus Plus and StopZilla to prevent such errors from occurring on your system.

GOOD LUCK :-)

for that you need winxp bootabler disk.
Tehn boot your computer with tht and go to recoverry console.
Then type in command prompt "chkdsk /r"
then press "y"
then it fixc error on harddisk.
Then after completing it restart your computer and boot with harddisk then it ok.

There's actually a number of reasons why these annoying little DLL errors happen, but the most common, is caused when new programs are installed over all old ones and the old ones are not completely uninstalled 100%, causing registry pile ups and of course, getting a .DLL error messages.

Another reason, is damage that's been done by malware/spyware/adware programs, attaching themselves to your PC and wrecking havoc, deleting crucial DLL files from your PC.

The hal.dll file is created during install from 5 other dlls. HAL is the Hardware Abstraction Layer and it's the interface between the system drivers and the actual hardware.

Copying hal.dll will not resolve the problem.

A lot of times the file will be reported missing due to corruption of the boot sector or of the file system

Causes of the "missing or corrupt hal.dll" error include, naturally, a damaged hal.dll file or a hal.dll file that has been deleted or moved from its intended location.

Additional causes may include a damaged or missing boot.ini file or possibly a physically damaged HDD.

Suggested remodies-

1. Restart the PC. The hal.dll error could be a fluke.

2. Check for proper boot order in BIOS. You might see the hal.dll error if the boot order in BIOS is first looking at a hard drive other than your main hard drive.
Note: If you've recently changed your boot order or recently flashed your BIOS, this may be what's causing your problem.

3. Run Windows XP System Restore from a command prompt. If this doesn't work or you're receiving the hal.dll error message before you're able to complete this process, move on to the next step.

4. Repair or replace the boot.ini file. This will work if the cause of the problem is actually Windows XP's boot.ini file and not the hal.dll file, which is often times the case.

5. Write a new partition boot sector to the Windows XP system partition. If the partition boot sector has become corrupt or isn't properly configured, you may receive the hal.dll error.

6. Restore the hal.dll file from the Windows XP CD. If the hal.dll file is truly the cause of the problem, restoring it from the original Windows XP CD may do the trick.

7. Perform a repair installation of Windows XP. This type of installation should replace any missing or corrupt files. Continue troubleshooting if this does not resolve the issue.

8. Perform a clean installation of Windows XP. This type of installation will completely remove Windows XP from your PC and install it again from scratch.

Note: While this will almost certainly resolve any hal.dll errors, it is a time consuming process due to the fact that all of your data must be backed up and then later restored.

Important: If you can't gain access to your files to back them up, understand that you will lose them all if you continue with a clean installation of Windows XP.

9. Replace the hard drive. Finally, if all else has failed, including the clean installation from the last step, you're most likely facing a hardware issue with your hard drive.

10. Perform a new installation of Windows XP after installing the new hard drive.

I have not tried it - but HERE is a free program purporting to fix the error.


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which operating system are you using?...if it is windows XP, you can do a re-install that will replace the missing files....
you do this by going about the install in the normal way, until you get a few screens in when you be informed that windows has found another version of the operating system, and do you wish to fix that installation...check yes, and proceed....any questions, just ask!!!