My Windows XP PC has stopped booting. On start up, before Windows boots a screen appears saying:

Windows Could Not Boot: Could Not Find or Corrupted file <Windows root>\Sytem32\Hal.dll 
Please Reinstall the file...   

From that I understand that I have to reinstall the OS but my computer is so old that I have lost the backup and recovery disk.

My Computer's Info:

32Bit Computer  
Pentium 4  
Windows XP Service Pack 2  
HP  

History:

My Computer has 4 hard drives   
2 internal 40 GB drives (C And D)   
2 external 8GB drives  (E And F)   

Additional Info:

• I need the files inside C And E
• The computer reads my flash drive as a hard drive (8.45GB)(I have never booted while my USB pluged in while I was troubleshooting)
• With some test I discovered that the C drive wasn't detected by the computer
• I have already configured the boot order of BiOS
• I have Set The SATA to IDE

The Question:

I have a setup for windows 8 32 bit how can I boot from my USB to run that setup?

If that isn't the proper way to handle this problem please tell me the proper way.