Fred Langda got this one:
For example, if you already have some knowledge of the commands involved, many “Missing or corrupt HAL.DLL,” “Invalid Boot.Ini,” or “Windows could not start…” problems can be fixed with these five shortcut steps:
- Boot from your XP Setup CD and enter the Recovery Console
- Run “Attrib -H -R -S” on the C:\Boot.ini file
- Delete the C:\Boot.ini file
- Run “Bootcfg /Rebuild”
- Run Fixboot