Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt

Hello,

OK I've been running Windows XP successfully through boot camp for quite a while now. All of a sudden I try to boot up into windows I see an error that says the following:

"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."

I couldn't boot normally and so I though maybe safemode. Nope still no success. I use rEFIt as my boot menu when I start and never had problems with it. It still displays windows as a bootable OS so thats not an issue. So I figured if I can't boot into windows to fix this I will boot into Leopard and go into the WINDOWS directory and locate this corrupt HAL.DLL file and replace it with one I found on this website:

DLL-files.com - hal.dll, free download

So I got the hal.dll file and replaced it with the one in the system32 folder and tried booting up Window again.

This error went away and now we have a new one:

"Windows could not start because of an error in the software.
Please report this problem as:
Load needed DLLs for kernel
Please contact your support person to report this problem."

So I am not sure what to do at this point, I have good computer knowledge but I need assistance tackling this issue. It might be harder than we think because I do not have my Windows XP Professional with SP2 CD to use. However I do have a legal image file of it from my school. Each student can get free software, one of which being Windows XP Pro SP2. I do not have a blank DVD on hand to burn the image to and use that as the CD for installation, recovery, etc. But I'm sure there are ways to fix this or troubleshot this without a CD.

Any Ideas, please help.

Thank you,

Steve

the exact same error happened on my stepmothers computer. you couldnt boot into windows any way or how. what I did was change the boot order to cd put a windows xp install disk inside and when the disk ran instead of chosing new install i chose repair. it said reparing your windows installation. then on reboot i went back and changed the boot order back to normal then reboot and all was fixed.