Hal Missing Or Corrupt With New RAM

I've had the familiar hal.dll missing or corrupt on starting XP SP1 on a mainboard NameMSI KM2M Combo (MS-6738).All I did was to take out the 1 Gig of SDRAM I've used OK for months and fit a new 1 Gig DDR module. A year or two back I had STOP errors through merely changing a RAM module, the simplest upgrade usually, so I kept switching RAM until it went with no STOPs. I resent having to reinstall an OS for a five-minute RAM refit! Obviously the hal error is caused by the new DDR module, since I'm now using the old SDRAM. Is there a way around this apart from the dreaded reinstall of OS? In the rare event the DDR could be faulty does anyone know a non-windows DDR test utility please?