[RESOLVED] Two Boots from HAL.DLL Recovery

Recently I had a HAL.DLL error ("hal.dll is missing or corrupt").

I followed this procedure -

http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/SLN132839

Which consisted of doing a - bootcfg /rebuild

Everything went fine, but now I seem to have two boot configurations.

When the computer starts, before it even get to the operating system, the screen stalls (30 seconds) on a black screen with white print that gives me TWO Boot Options.

Windows XP Home Edition

and

Microsoft Windows Home Editions

Windows XP Home Edition is the new one that I just created.

I've guessing that somewhere there are two boot files, and I have to choose which one. Is there any way to get rid of the old boot configuration so it will bypass this screen and go straight to starting Windows?

At this screen, it has a 30 second time out. After 30 seconds it defaults to the new Boot Configuration, which is the one I want it to default to. So, the computer doesn't freeze or anything, it just adds another 30 seconds to the boot time unless I am there to hit the ENTER key.

Thoughts?

Steve

When you start your computer, the Boot options may show two or more Operating System entries, out of which some may be invalid.
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/bootopt.htm

The easiest thing to do would be to right-click on My Computer then click Properties.
On the Advanced tab, click Startup and Recovery Settings
Uncheck the "Time to display list..."
Click OK

Thanks to all who replied. I finally broke down and edited the BOOT.INI file and removed the old boot listing.

It originally said -

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Home Edition" /NoExecute=Optin /fastdetect

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

I removed this line -

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Everything seems to work fine now.

RESOLVED.

Steve

Thanks for posting your fix!

I've been known as well to go into: run / msconfig / boot tab /- and remove the (or make default ) boot .ini that are listed ..