Acer Laptop XP system - crashed.

I am self taught on a Vista laptop over the past 5 years. Last year I was given an Acer 1640Z laptop which has the XP OS, and have kept it up to date for a relative. Today I pressed the wrong button which started to wipe the XP. I switched off immediately, however, I now cannot get it to boot up, or even boot from a Macrium Reflect rescue DVD. The message on screen is that the file is missing or corrupt,i.e.- Windows root\system 32\hal.dll

It looks like any remedy will be too technical for me (70yrs )

DO NOT THINK I have posted this in the incorrect forum, why I am posting here is the Acer laptop has an official sticker on it, quoting " Designed for Windows XP - Windows Vista Capable."

The question is can I convert the Acer from XP to Vista, since I still have the disks which came with the Dell Vista laptop when I bought it new ?

Hoping for some positive guidance in ths matter.

That error is a bad one to get because it indicates very low level corruption. You will have to reinstall XP. The hard drive will probably have to be reformatted. You can't use a copy of Vista that came with a dell on an Acer so unless you can find a retail copy of Vista you are stuck with XP or Linux. By now it will be too late to get the Vista disks from Acer but you can try.

townsbg, Thank you for that guidance, looks like I have 'cocked up' the Acer laptop completely. I may try a local computer firm to see if they can rectify matters for me.

They will only be able to reinstall. That is a bad error to get.

townsbg, Thanks for the help. I am looking at having a local computer firm fix the Acer. In the meantime I have come across an article in the UK magazine, ComputerActive, issue No. 446, April, 2015, which shows how to use Lazesoft Recovery Suite. I have downloaded/burned it to a DVD, and am able to get the Acer to boot from that disk.

For the benfit of others the Lazesoft Recovery can be used with XP and onwards, the link provided by the magazine is :
www.snipca.com/15830 It may be useful for other members of this forum.

Thanks again for your help.

The problem with this error is that either the listed file is corrupt, other files that use it are corrupt (including the kernel), or both. Basically you have low level corruption preventing Windows from communicating with the hardware. That's what that dll does. I don't know anything about that software but recovery software is used to recover deleted files and such software isn't always able to do that. For corrupted files the files need to be fixed so although you can try it don't expect much your recovery software in this case. What you need to do is reinstall XP to ensure that you don't have any more issues with XP. I suggest that you use a live version of Linux such as knoppix or ubuntu and back up your data. Now this error could also be caused by hard drive failure. I had that happen once.

townsbg, Thanks once again. I vaguely follow the gist of your thread, and I am beginning to realise that what I want to achieve may well be beyond my capabilties. To reinstall Windows XP I would need a Microsoft disk, but even then it may be more prudent to have it done by a professional, just in case I cause more problems.