First, here is a time line of what happened before my problem:
I installed windows xp, downloaded updates and installed .net, service packs, etc.
I made a ghost of that in order to save time in the future to install all in one shot.
I installed another xp on another partition (E) of the same drive
At boot I could chose any of the two windows and both were booting normally.
I worked like this for a couple of months.
Something happened to the first windows xp installed on partition (C) so I decided to try my ghost file
I recovered and windows is working fine but the other windows will not boot, even if it's still in the boot choices
If I select the second windows, the one in partition (E), I get the message that it cannot find HAL.dll in windows/system32
I copied the file HAL.dll from my windows xp cdrom but it did not help.
You are right to assume that I did not do another ghost of the first windows after the 2nd windows was installed.
Is it possible to repair this problem?