IEXPLORE.EXE failure.

I recently came across a serious error with my windows xp on my other pc.

I installed something i now regret installing and my PC became very very slugish and i had to reboot by pressing the reset button, once i did that windows was about to boot up when it told me my hal.dll file was corrupt.

I tried to fix it in dos but it wouldnt even read the c: directory.

So i reformatted and after all that mess was over with i log into the main user and IEXPLORE.EXE will not launch, even when i open the task manager and select it from the new task it will not start up, so i just stare at a blue screen. So i reformatted it again and i still get the same issue, replacing the hard drive is out of the question, it was very expensive and it Windows messed it up then i would like microsoft to replace my HDD.

Anyone know how i can fix this?

 

What brand of PC?

How, exactly, did you reformat and reinstall windows?