HALL.DLL problem when starting XP

[PH-RVG]

System is multi-boot XP & Windows 7.
After replacement of the motherboard and re-activation of XP and W7 everything appeared OK. But after tweaking the boot sector (with Vista BootPro I am ashamed to say) I cannot start XP anymore and get the message:

Windows cannot be started because the following file is corrupt or missing: <root>\system32\hal.dll>
Install again

Windows7start without problems.

What have we done sofar?:
- Recovery console bootcfg procedure (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184)
- Cahnged and rewritten Boot.ini (using via XP safe mode)
- EasyBCD (in Windows 7)
- Replaced Hal.dll with a hal.dll file from a working XP system.

Any suggestions except re-installations?

[JustinW]

Don't use VistaBootPro, it was stolen from NST hence the reason we have an app called EasyBCD.

This problem should be fixable with EasyBCD's autoconfigure boot.ini feature. Boot into Windows 7 > Get and install the latest version of EasyBCD from here > Tools > Autoconfigure Boot.ini.

Now reboot and make sure its working

[PH-RVG]

Thank you, Justin
This solved the problem.

And, I did not know EasyBCD until I started looking for solutions to this problem but I will use it from now on AND I will promote it whenever appropriate.

Thanks again, I really did not fancy a re-installation.