[chapstic2001]

I tried to boot my system the other day and after the post and PnP initalization, I got the message, "your hal.dll is missing or corrupted. Reinstall hal.dll and restart your computer." Something of those sorts. I tired recovering the dll by using the recovery feature of the XP cd, but after a few attempts and being told that folder does not exist, I did some digging....my entire c:\windows folder is missing!!!! How on earth did this happen? I have seen two suggestions, reinstalling the OS or putting my corrupt os drive as a slave and coping the file over from a working machine. Does anyone have a suggestion that does not require me swapping disk or re-installing the os?