Solved: hal.dll error, no bios, no cd drive

My problem is in the #4 computer listed in my information. It had been working perfectly until tonight. I had the infamous hal.dll missing or corrupt error. I figured best thing would be to boot to windows XP cd. I have a retail copy that I installed on the machine. It would not boot to the copy of windows.
I tried the copy on my other computer and it booted to it perfectly. I thought perhaps the boot error was incorrect but I cannot boot into the bios to see.
I tried swapping out the dvd/cd drive for another known working one ( it is ide not sata) but that did not seem to help either the bios situation nor the booting into windows cd situation.
At this point I cannot get into the bios. I cannot boot to windows cd. I am hoping someone has other suggestions to try.
Thank you very much,
Linda

 

if you can not get into the bios holding down its entry key on bootup then you will have to set the bios default. meaning open the case and reset the cmos jumper to clear its self., power off no power lead plugged in. leave for a minute or so then set jumper to default position reboot and you should be able to enter the bios. check all setting and change the boot order to suit cdrom first...

 

Hi , and thank you for your suggestion and that would have been my next thing to try. After putting my thinking cap on I decided to try a ps2 keyboard instead of the usb keyboard I had plugged in there. I had the bios set to legacy usb but I guess when it lost windows for some reason it lost that too. The ps2 board allowed me into the bios and voila I am now formatted. It wouldn't let me do a repair. I have no idea what caused all this fooferaw in the first place but thank you SO much for a really good suggestion. I shall mark this solved for now.