NTDRL is missing / hal.dll was missing or corrupt

[stumble]

I ran System Mechanic last night and this morning I rebooted to make the changes stick.  When I rebooted my coputer said NTDRL is missing.


I went here http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm and downladed the fix but my luck - 1. Windows could not start because file "<Windows Root>\system32\hal.dll was missing or corrupt

I tried reloading Windows Xp Home again (thinking maybe something changed since the last time I reloaded Windows this morning.  Now it says Setup could not read the CD you inserted, or the CD is not a valid Windows CD.

Wel, it's the replacement Cd they sent me when my burner ate the old one!

I can get into safe mode and until now I cold get into Window Repair.  I did copy i386/ntdetec and i386/ntdecect.com into C, but the firect I overwrote and it couldn'd do the second.

I could scrub the drive with System Mechanic but them I would loose the 30 or so movies I downloaded that have been wating for the RMSd Lasonic hard drive to return from RMS status.  I would really not like to lose all those.    

So what do you thing?  Is there hope, or do I scrub and start all over?

Sandy in FL

[Backdated]

If this is a single partition/single OS system and you can boot to a recovery console, enter the following and hit enter after each line:

attrib -h -r -s c:\boot.ini
del c:\boot.ini
bootcfg /rebuild
fixboot

You may need to use the 6 diskette boot set.

Please throw away System Mechanic and other such destructive weapons.