Updated CCleaner and now my system32 is deleted....

Updated CCleaner as usual, ran the cleaning process without adding anything, as usual, now my computer is off.

When I attempt to turn it on I get the error: windows>\system32\hal.dll is missing or corrupt

and it asks me to re-install a copy.

Anyone have any idea how to fix this or what might have caused this? I need the files on this computer, so any way to save the files is needed. Please help, thank you.

try this

http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?hal

If the above doesn't work, (I don't have any faith in those sort of DDL Library sites - all snake oil salesman in my experience) try....

I assume you have XP and it's installation CD.

Boot from the CD and go into the XP Recovery Console.

from the command prompt, you could do expand d:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\ /y to get back the file in question.

and while there do a chkdsk /r in case there are other errors on the drive.

But your problem may not be with hal.dll, that just happens to be the first file Windows is telling you it can't find or is corrupted.

Let's try the easy stuff first and go from there.

Did you just run the CC cleaner or the registry cleaner as well?