Need help putting Win XP on to MacBook

[Dev2]

I have a Blackbook with Leopard installed. The other day me an my friend decided we wanted to play LAN (C&C Generals), I have a desktop that can run it perfectly. I know Generals can't be played on Windows and Mac over multi player i.e. LAN.

Anyway the Problem:

I downloaded XP Pro from my MSDN account and burned it to a DVD no problem. Got boot camp to partition the hard drive. Then I encountered a problem but after some Googling I found a solution, defrag my Mac at the boot screen. Problem gone.

So I could finally install windows XP as per usual and did, come the boot into windows (pre windows logo) I got an error:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

So naturally I reinstalled windows again with the same disc. Same problem.
I assumed download, burning process or something a long the line screwed up.

I go dig out an old XP Pro disc I had in some boxes. Do the installation.
Same issue.

My MSDN account does allow me to have Vista Business, but since my Blackbook is limited in spec for gaming I figured I'd go with XP, since it technically has a lower footprint.

Suggestions?
Dev.

 

[Burnsy2023]

I had the same issue. Got impatient and stuck Vista on which worked perfectly. I think it's to do with SP3.

 

[Dev2]

Both my XP disks are service pack 3, thanks for the suggestion, I'll try an SP2 if I can get my hands on it.
I remember strong suggestions to use SP2 I assumed that because SP3 was newer there would be less issues.