installing XP help

blastman

blastman

blastman

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Hey all,

I'm trying to install XP on an old laptop. I'm using the Samsung recovery cd that came with it. (I've had to copy the cd to a dvd as the cd/dvd drive won't read cd's.)

When I boot to dvd I get a DOS A: prompt. (This seems odd as the machine has no floppy drive...) I've used fdisk and removed the partition and re-created it making it bootable.

I then tried to format it (A:\format C: /s) but I get a "Invalid drive, or format not supported"

I've managed to copy the i386 folder to the c:\ and when I try to run "winnt /s: d:\i386" I get "Could not find a place for a swap file" and I have to exit the xp install.

Does anyone know why I'm unable to format the only drive in this laptop??

Has anyone seen this XP install error before??

I've done the Google thing and the only answers that came up where "format the c:\ again" which isn't very helpful.

Cheers in advance for your help... (If you can!!);)

edit:
I have noticed the option in the BIOS to make the recovery partition deleate able. do anyone think I should slave the hdd in to my Pc and then format the whole thing, removing the recovery part and then use our VLK edition of XP (I saw trying to avoid paying for another licence!!)
 
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I'm not 100% clear on what's happening here. Is the Samsung recovery CD (/DVD) a recovery disk for the original XP installation that was on the laptop? Or was the original OS something older than XP?

Also, be aware that recovery disks sometimes mount drives in weird places (used one the other day that made my CD drive R: for some reason...), so try going through a:, b:, c: etc, and using the dir command, to work out where your hard disk has been mounted (if at all). If you find the drive through this process, you'll know to where to direct the format command.

Don't know why you have to go through the format process though - in my (limited) experience of recovery discs, they seem happy to restore your PC to factory condition (which involves removing anything from the disk that wasn't there when installed). And doesn't the XP setup let you fiddle with partitions and formatting? Win2k certainly did...
 
Cobertizo said:
I'm not 100% clear on what's happening here. Is the Samsung recovery CD (/DVD) a recovery disk for the original XP installation that was on the laptop? Or was the original OS something older than XP?
Click to expand...

Yes, the OS was the oringal OS that came pre-installed. (XP)

Cobertizo said:
try going through a:, b:, c: etc, and using the dir command, to work out where your hard disk has been mounted (if at all).
Click to expand...

The C: drive is there and shows as being empty, as I pervoiusly formated it whilst it was slaved into another machine. (I also have A and D)

Cobertizo said:
Don't know why you have to go through the format process though - in my (limited) experience of recovery discs, they seem happy to restore your PC to factory condition (which involves removing anything from the disk that wasn't there when installed). And doesn't the XP setup let you fiddle with partitions and formatting? Win2k certainly did...
Click to expand...

This is true. Normaly a recovery disk has an image that it installs. When I used the 'suite' that is on the recovery disk it simply removed the old windows folder and reinstalled in. This ment that instead of getting a fresh install I ended up with program files folder that contain all of the pervoius users data.

The whole reason I wanted to 'recover' the laptop was to have a nice clean install, making it faster for the new user.

I've be thinking, I reakon that the best way forward is to slave it back into my pc and delete the recvoery partition, put it back in the laptop and use a VLK edition of XP.

What do you reakon???

Cheers for the reply...;)
 
Sorry if I am stating the obvious, but when you copied the samsung CD to a DVD, did you make the DVD bootable? I am assuming the recovery disc was bootable, and you would do the recovery/re-install using the software on the disc, which would run automatically at startup if the disc is in the drive.

If your DVD is not bootable, then you will probably need to make one that is.
 
yeah, the dvd is bootable.

If i boot without it in the drive i get 'os not found'

if i use either the recovery/VLK cd - burnt to bootable dvd - I get a dos prompt.

%bangs head against brick wall!!%
 
blastman said:
When I used the 'suite' that is on the recovery disk it simply removed the old windows folder and reinstalled in. This ment that instead of getting a fresh install I ended up with program files folder that contain all of the pervoius users data.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you've deleted everything from the disk now though (through deleting the partition and recreating it), so if you try to recover the system now, does that return it to factory condition? The previous user's data surely shouldn't return now...

blastman said:
I've be thinking, I reakon that the best way forward is to slave it back into my pc and delete the recvoery partition, put it back in the laptop and use a VLK edition of XP.

What do you reakon???
Click to expand...
That will probably be easiest. My only question would be whether your VLK legally covers that extra machine. If it does, and it's a spare licence that's kicking around, then it will save having to battle with the Samsung recovery disc at least!
 
blastman said:
yeah, the dvd is bootable.

If i boot without it in the drive i get 'os not found'

if i use either the recovery/VLK cd - burnt to bootable dvd - I get a dos prompt.

%bangs head against brick wall!!%
Click to expand...
Two other things:
a) is the disk formatted using NTFS or FAT32? If it's NTFS (argh - keep on typing NTSC!!), then maybe trying FAT32 at this stage might help. Long shot, but could be worth a try.
b) how did you create the bootable dvd? Did you do a straight disc-to-disc copy, or did you copy the files over and create a bootable disc from scratch?
c) I lied. It's three things. Does the bootable DVD bring you to anything other than a DOS prompt on your main PC?
 
cheers for the reply guys;

a - FAT32
b - with nero. I copied all the data from the cd and then burnt it to dvd. (using nero's wizard to make bootable)
c - I've yet to try booting the recovery disk in another pc.

Now that everything has gone from the hdd, you'd have thought this would be easy but I'm still getting the same errors.

Someone has mentioned that these disc seems to be trying to install xp on another drive (not c:) hence the 'could not find a place for a swap file' and that I need to make a bootable disc with permission for the c:

What do you reakon??

cheers again.
 
blastman said:
Someone has mentioned that these disc seems to be trying to install xp on another drive (not c:) hence the 'could not find a place for a swap file'
Click to expand...
Sounds very plausible. Based on the fact that you've made a DVD that's bootable based on Nero's wizard, I would suggest trying the following instead:
1) A straight disc-to-disc copy (if it will allow you to do this from CD to DVD); or,
2) Create a bootable XP DVD based on instructions which you can find via Google (e.g. search for bootable xp dvd) - it seems that having a specific boot sector helps a lot...
 
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