PC won't boot from startup

[PBroole]

Hey all, I am having a problem with my P5S-VM800 Asus, Maxtor hdd, Kingston 512 mb ram- Geforce 5200 FX128 mb card, Windows XP Home.
When i start it says Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

Windows\System32\root.dll Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

Windows\System\root.dll or somethignn along those lines i know root.dl is in there, i can't use the recovery console cuz i never set an administrators password, my pc was working fine absolutley fine until this morning and i started getting this error, i did chkdsk , its saying the disc is fine, so is there a way to fix this or do i have to format?

Thanks.

P.

[kryyst]

Normally root.dll isn't the file that is missing it's normally a missing root.dll error but then it references another file that is missing. You shouldn't normally have a file on your computer called root.dll.

If you do have a file in system or system32 named root.dll there is a better chance that you've got a virus.

[PBroole]

ok i got the actual error message,


Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt
windows root\
<WINDOWS root>\system32\hal.dl
Please re-install a copy of the above file
<WINDOWS>

[kryyst]

You can get the file here http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?hal

[PBroole]

so what do i do, save this to disc and just insert it after i choose ot boot form the windows dsic or

[kryyst]

so what do i do, save this to disc and just insert it after i choose ot boot form the windows dsic or

You need to boot up off the windows cd and go into recovery console then copy the file from the floppy to the correct spot on the harddrive and overright the existing file.