I have asystem with two hard drives.
Primary master I have win XP this is my default OS
Primary slave I have Slackware 10
When I boot up the welcome screen come up with selection of either XP or Linux.
When I choose XP it works fine.
But when I select Linux I am getting following message
Windows could not start because the following file is missing pr corrupt
(windows root > system 32 \hal.dll. Please re install a copy of the above drive.
I am confused please help

I don't know what boot loader you are using, but perhaps your boot.ini is corrupted. Check out this link here, for more details on hal.dll:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000490.htm

Assuming that you're using lilo, please post the contents of your lilo.conf file (which is in the /etc directory) That would be helpful info -- J.W.

Likewise if you're using GRUB, please post the contents of it

I will give you what my window boot loader and lilo look like

[boot loader]
time out =30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS
(operating system)
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS = Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
C:\BOOTSECT>LNX = 'Linux'


Lilo
LILO confugaration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
boot= /dev/hdb
message - boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 50
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change- rules
reset
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
vga = 773
# Normal VGA console
(another 18 lines of various VESA detail which I don't want to re type)

# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdb1
label = Linux
read only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

I hope this info will help you to give valuble suggestions