Missing NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM or HAL.DLL

This normally occurs when you do not shutdown properly or shutdown occurs when there are some background activities that are not yet completed.

Windows XP that comes with the your system is normally installed on a NTFS partition which basically means that it is inaccessible without the GUI of Windows unless you have some special tools like NTFSDOS. If you're sure that your XP is on a FAT32 partition, you can just boot it up from a Windows 98 CD or Startup disk and then following the subsequent copying instruction below.

If not, you will need to boot the system from the Win XP CD. (Your Startup disk won't work because even if you come to DOS prompt, you will still not be able to access your C:)

To boot from CD, please go into your motherboard system BIOS and set the Primary Boot Device to CDROM. The method to enter your motherboard BIOS varies from system to system. Normally it is the DEL key.

If it doesn't work and there is no message on the screen (for some "high end, please don't mess with the bios" system that only display their logo, try pressing TAB first) that says something like "Press ***** to Enter Setup", I would normally just hit ramdomly on F1, F2, F8, F10.(And you need to be fast too.) Should be able to get in after a few attempt.

After you manage to boot up from your XP CD, select Repair an installation in Console mode. Select your Windows installation folder and for "Missing NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM", copy the two files found in I386 folder on your XP CD to C:\.

For HAL.DLL (hardware abstraction layer) missing or corrupted do a repair by entering bootcfg /rebuild to rebuild the system settings.

The boot.ini also contains the information on the various installations that you have on your system. You may also wish to edit it to remove invalid or non-functioning previous Windows setup.