[WGH]

Early last night after upgrading Adobe Acrobat my main business/media computer starting acting wonky, the usual solution is a re-boot. This time, right after a restart, the first message I saw saw the dreaded HAL.DLL is missing or corrupted. After a bit of searching I found my XP disk and used the Recovery Console to expand and copy hal.dl_ to the appropriate directory. After a re-boot Windows hung on the splash screen. Now what?  The only solution is usually a complete re-install of XP, all the updates, and all the programs - about a 2-3 day adventure.

I have always had a comprehensive backup plan, music files are backed up to a 2 TB USB drive and data is backed up using the new Qwest online backup service plus once a week I image the C drive using BootIt Next Generation. An image file is a clone of the hard drive including the boot sectors in a compressed configuration.

I booted the computer with the BootIt boot disk and pasted the 2 day old image to the C drive and went to bed. Six hours later the image was restored and the computer is working as if nothing happened.

The moral of the story is backup, backup, backup. You never know when disaster will strike.

Wayne

[Jon L]

Good for you. 

A similar thing is happening to my XP Pro machine as well.  I forget which, but one of the Windows .DLL file became missing or corrupted. 
I haven't been able to find my XP Pro disc to try the "repair" option, but it sounds like your "repair" attempt ended up in disaster. 

Another issue is I am unble to make image copies of my computer because apparently due to the corrupted windows file/DLL, any attempts to image the drive that includes my XP Pro just hangs up or the copy ends up being corrupted.  This is even with multiple different imaging programs, including Norton Ghost and a host of others, free or commercial 

[WGH]

Jon - there are Windows imaging programs that run in the background while the OS is live and then there is BootIt. I like BootIt because the program starts off a boot disk and since Windows is not running the program makes an image of the disk as is, missing or corrupted dll's don't matter because the program is just imaging bits.

The program has a 30 day trial if you install it but I no longer use it as a boot manager so I don't need those features. You don't need to install the program to use it as a Partition/Imaging tool so for that use it is basically free, though I recommend paying if you like it. The interface is designed by computer nerds so PM me if you need any hints on how to get it to work. The pdf manual is well written if a bit dense at first read.

Wayne

[mcgsxr]

Glad you were able to save it - a buddy of mine is resolute that there is a virus in the Adobe update, as his machines all died after saying yes to that - not sure if it is urban myth or not.

I have not allowed that update on any of my 3 XP Pro machines though...

[WGH]

I think I'll hold off on that Adobe update too.

The reason I had a very recent image was because I was just at the Microsoft Update site getting all the security updates for the last month and I always make a fresh image before updating the OS.

I have Automatic Updates turned off, I don't like to be force fed potential problems. I get the Windows Secrets Newsletter by Brian Livingston and Fred Langa; they and their team keep me informed about the latest Windows updates and if they are safe to install or hold off until bugs are worked out. If Adobe has a bug in their latest update it should show up in a newsletter if enough people get bit.