If your PC runs into HAL INITIALIZATION FAILED error with STOP CODE 0x0000005C when your system either wakes up from sleep or when you boot your Windows, it’s because of a hardware or device driver problem on your computer.
This indicates that the initialization of the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) failed. This can only happen during the relatively short period that the Windows OS is being initialized, during phase 4 of Windows startup. This might be a hardware problem.
If the error doesn’t go away after a PC reboot, then you need to follow the steps in this guide to resolve this. The error message usually looks like as below:
Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We’re just collecting some error info, and then we’ll restart for you. If you’d like to know more, you can search online later for this error: HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED
Fix HAL INITIALIZATION FAILED BSOD 0x0000005C
You will have to boot the PC into Safe mode with Networking mode using the Advanced startup options which can be accessed by pressing F2 or F8. This depends on OEM implementation. Once there, try the following suggestions.
1] Remove external hardware
Make sure to remove any connected & external hardware when upgrading or updating. Many a time Windows update gets stuck because it tries to get a driver for the connected hardware which can be done later.
2] Turn Windows fast startup off
Windows Fast Startup mode allows the computer to boot up rather quickly compared to the cold boot. It makes sure the kernel session is not closed, but the rest of the state is hibernated. You need to turn it off.
3] Update Device Drivers
Check with Windows Update, and see if there is an update pending which relates with your Device Drivers. If necessary, you can always install them manually from the OEMs website.
4] Repair hard-disk errors
In the case of errors on the hard drive, the update will fail as the system will think that it’s not healthy. You should run chkdsk in the command prompt to resolve those issues. If this cannot solve your problem, you may have to think about replacing your hard drive.
5] Run DISM Tool
When you run DISM (Deployment Imaging and Servicing Management) tool, it will repair Windows System Image and Windows Component Store in Windows 10. All of the system inconsistencies and corruptions should be fixed. You can either use PowerShell or a command prompt to execute this command.
6] Disable antivirus
It is always a good idea to temporarily disable the Anti-Virus and Security software. You can either disable such software or completely uninstall them till you fix the issue. If you are using Windows Defender, it is easy to disable it for troubleshooting.
7] Perform Clean Boot
If nothing works, you can perform Clean Boot and troubleshoot the issue there.
Let us know if these tips helped you to resolve HAL INITIALIZATION FAILED error code 0x0000005C on Windows 11/10.
