Windows XP Install... Feeling depressed.

rlilewis

rlilewis

rlilewis

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6 Mar 2008
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15
Hi,

Bought a new mobo and cpu and fitted everything. I have a sata cd drive and two old IDE HDDs. My drives were working perfectly fine before the mobo change but now everything is completely buggered. I don't know what the hell is going on.

First time I tried to boot up it said a file in windows\system32 was corrupted or missing. So i got my dell xp reinstallation cd and put it in and booted it off the CD, formatted the first disk and installed XP.

The problem is that it does the formatting into NTFS and then installs the initial files. It then says the the first part of install is complete, it will restart and continue afterwords. It doesn't continue afterwords though, if I let it boot and don't touch anything it says:

"A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl+AlT+Del to restart"

It prompts me to press any key to boot of the CD, if I do this then it just takes me back to the initial setup screen as if I were trying to install from the very beginning. I am stuck in an endless loop...

Normally it will go back into windows setup and you have to configure a bunch of stuff but it just never goes back in. ArghhhhH!

I've never had this happen before. Does any one know what the hell is happening or any clue to how I might fix it?
 
It's a wild guess but maybe it's because your using a Dell installation disk on a different motherboard to one which would usually be found in dells PC's?

Usually those disks are restricted to certain hardware configurations.
 
1337z0r said:
It's a wild guess but maybe it's because your using a Dell installation disk on a different motherboard to one which would usually be found in dells PC's?

Usually those disks are restricted to certain hardware configurations.
Click to expand...

Hello, thanks for replies. First off my boot order is CD first then hard drive.

I am wondering the same thing, I have done a mobo replacement before and not had this problem but the motherboard was the exact same model. So perhaps the Dell CD is locked to a certain mobo.

Anyway to better sum up what is happening I found this guide on google:

9 Now press C to create a brand new partition you will be asked what size you want the partition to be in mega bytes. If you just press enter then the partition will be the maximum size that you can have. This is perfectly ok if you don`t want to create multiple partitions.

10 You will now be asked to format the partition select the ntfs file sytem and do a full format.

11 Once the format is complete setup will continue.

Your computer will restart during the remaining setup again you will be asked to press any key to boot from cd DO NOT PRESS ANYTHING. and setup will continue. **********

This is where it all goes wrong. Once it has restarted I do not press anything just like it says above but rather than go back into setup it gives me the error:

"Disk read error"
 
Check that it is booting off the correct ide hard drive as it sounds like its trying to boot from the one that doesn't have xp installation on it.

Disconnect the storage one to make sure.

Regarding the dell disk it should be fine on any hardware setup. It will just need activating with the legit code if its not recognised as a dell.

I use dell disks to do setups on many pcs and it works fine every time though sometimes a phone call to m$ is needed.
 
Yeah i will give it a try. I have also disconnected sound card and left only one ram stick in. Currently doing a full ntfs which takes bloody ages so wont know if it has worked for a while yet.
 
ive had this problem a few times before, always ended up being the hard drive. i used a spare hard drive to install xp onto, then connected up my main hard drive inside xp, did a format in xp disk management then re installed xp onto that hard drive.

a bit long winded but it works for me!
 
Omg it just finished formatting and now says:

"Setup was unable to format the partition. The disk may be damaged.

Make sure the drive is switched on and properly connected to your computer."

Why the hell didn't it tell me this before the half hour of formatting...
 
depends what dell cd it is, most of the time its just an OEM windows disk not limited to any particular hardware (not that it means itll instantly have all the right drivers, windows doesnt always anyway).

if you can, get the disks into another machine and chkdsk them.
 
Yes I can put them into the one downstairs and have them checked over. It can't be the disks because they were working this morning and now they're not which is just complete bull.

I've got a spare IDE cable here and have tried switching it over to see if that will make any difference.
 
nothing wrong with the hard drive itself, its something to do with the boot ini file, i tried looking on the net for ways to resolve but after hours and hours the quickest way i found was to do what i suggested above
 
Now I have the ultimate joy of having to re-install absolutely everything from scratch. Man I love this stuff... not.

I don't suppose someone has written up a guide on re-installing xp from the ground up, you know all those little programs which are depended on like .net framework etc...?
 
there was a badass guide in a sticky in this section, its a little dated now but its still relevent in the majority of places..
 
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