windows xp pro installation problems

[jakkusto]

I'm attempting to install windows xp professional on my computer. I did everything in setup, it installed all the files (although when copying files from cd to hard drive, it usually has a few programs that it says did not install correctly. on the screen with this message it says to retry installing them hit enter. so i do and it gets past it no problem...it tells me at the end that setup completed successfully.) then it resets the computer, as its supposed to do. i get to to the screen that says installation complete in approximately x mins...its got info on the new features scrolling on the right side. now heres where i have problems. it always crashes someimte during this install, at different parts of it. I'm in a constant state of rebooting and crashing. I've made it as far as putting in the product id code or as short as 5 seconds after starting. everytime, there is some different problem (usually the blue "stop" screen comes up and it always identifies a different problem then previously occured). sometimes it suggests that the xp cd is corrupt, which im beggining to suspect. or sometimes it suggests disabling bios options liek shadowing or caching, but i dont have those options available, i think. i also considered downloading the bios updates from the manufacturers website, but i didnt find an exact match for my board, so im assuming there are no updates, and i dont want to risk running the wrong update for bios. I've tried reinstalling windows multiple times, i've even erased the hard drive by writing the zeros to it( the hard drive passed all tests just fine). Any ideas on whats wrong?

Specs
MSI k8n neo4-f mobo
maxtor diamondmax 160 gb hardrive

[jakkusto]

i also forgot to mention that sometimes instead of getting the "stop" screen, it could simply reboot or it also sometimes says that the log files dont have as much info in them as they r supposed to. and then it shows me all the errors with that and then resets.

[Paul Komski]

Suggest you try installing from the Hard Drive by copying the i386 folder from the CD to any FAT partition on the Hard drive. Then using a DOS boot floppy that contains smartdrv run A:\smartdrv (not mandatory but everything will run much faster) and then run C:\i386\winnt.exe

[jakkusto]

how do i specifically install the i386 folder from the CD...im not sure how to do that?

[Paul Komski]

You could:
1. Copy the files by temporarily slaving the HDD in another PC.
2. Copy the files using a Live CD such as Knoppix or BartPE.
3. Copy the files by directly booting to a DOS boot floppy (with CDROM support and smartdrv included).

If you have a FAT partition available thats fine other wise use fdisk and format to create a new FAT partition before proceeding.

First run smartdrv (optional but recommended for speed).
A:\smartdrv

Then issue the following DOS commands one after the other (substituting the CDROM's actual drive letter for X: below):
C:
md i386
X:
cd i386
copy *.* C:\i386

Then run winnt.exe to start the install
C:\i386\winnt

You will need to first confirm that the installation files are at C:\i386 and then setup should continue normally.

[jakkusto]

where can i find smartdsk, cdrom support, and how do i create the DOS boot disk? btw thanks for all the info i really appreciate it.

[Sylvander]

Bob Cerelli's Win98SE Startup Boot Floppy (http://www.onecomputerguy.com/install/floppies.htm#boot_floppy) is better than the Microsoft Windows Startup floppy, is easy to make and includes "Smartdrv.exe" and CD-ROM drivers. "Smartdrv" runs automatically with this floppy, so no need to type a command to run it.

Boot with the floppy disk in the drive; Smartdrv runs and CD-drives are always allocated X & Y [nice touch][Primary Master & Secondary Master in my case].

If Paul's commands don't work, try these:

Hit enter after typing each command.

1. a:\>c: [change focus to c:]

2. c:\>md i386 [make directory i386 on C:]

3. c:\>cd i386 [change to directory i386]

4. c:\i386>copy x:\i386\*.*
[copy Windows install files from the folder on the CD to i386 folder on C: Make sure the address is correct]
Files begin to scroll on black screen; takes some minutes to complete the copy.

5. c:\i386>winnt [run the installation file]
Setup copies files to the HDD. When complete the PC restarts.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I did all the above to test the procedure.
In my case my PC needs a RAID driver supplied on a floppy or the HDD cannot be accessed; I get a STOP: 0x0000007B error.
I had expected I'd have been given the option to abort the install, but never got that far.
Now every time I boot a menu is offered and I must choose to boot the existing Win2000 OS.
Any idea how I should get rid of this Paul?
Is there something simpler than restoring an image?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

[jakkusto]

ok i made the floppy with the program...booted from that and i got into dos, then i tried typing in "md i386" after prompting the c drive and it said "invalid media type reading drive c" . when i first installed windows i had made a few partitions on the hard drive, but i only formatted the C drive to NTFS files. so i went back and installed windows on my E drive using FAT 32. i tried entering dos and doing the same commands for E, but i get the same message.

[mjc]

Go grab the Maxtor diagnostics...and run them on the hard drive.

[Paul Komski]

but i only formatted the C drive to NTFS files
It is simplest/most straightforward to start with the first partition on the drive being FAT. It should be a primary partition and marked active. If you decide to install WinXP into the same FAT partition you will be given the option of converting it to NTFS as part of setup using winnt.

[Sylvander]

Anyone going to suggest how I get rid of my little glitch? :(

[Sylvander]

Glitch fixed. :D

Renamed BOOT.INI to BOOT.bad and copied C:\WINDOWS\pss\boot.ini.backup to C:\ and renamed it boot.ini so as to restore the previous boot.ini file content.
Tried rebooting and it works ok.
Will now send all Win2000Pro installation files to the Recycle Bin until certain that all's well, and then delete them from there [or restore them and Erase them].

Invalid Media Type reading drive C: (http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000231.htm)

[Paul Komski]

Had missed "the glitch" but good that it got sorted. I cant recommend strongly enough to make a Win2K/XP boot-up floppy to get one back in when one gets a corrupted boot process from the HDD. Just format a floppy from Win2K or WinXP to have the correct boot sector and then add your boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com files to it. Dead simple and you have a boot.ini that you can always easily edit to your heart's content.

[Sylvander]

NT/2k/XP boot floppy made. :)

Jak
Did you try command 1 and did the a:\> prompt change to a c:\> prompt ok?
I forgot...you should have done this command before 1...
1a. a:\>sys c: [to copy the DOS system files to C: so the c:\> prompt can work]
Sorry about that. :( :o

Has this HDD ever been used?
Has it ever been partitioned and formatted?
If not, before attampting to sys c: to the partition, fdisk.exe [to partition] and format.com [to format] it?

IF ADVENTUROUS OR DESPERATE
You can use the "File Manager" on the "Emergency Boot CD" [EBCD] linked below to browse the content of the partitions/drives [it would be useful if you could see that there were indeed files on there. I wonder what kind of warning would be generated if the drive isn't formatted?]
Post #4 on the EBCD thread shows an alternative method using "File Manager" to copy the Windows installation files from the CD to a folder on a partition on the HDD.

1. How to make a free “Smart Boot Manager” floppy
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41498
This makes it easier to boot a chosen drive [particularly the one holding the EBCD].

2. How to make a free EBCD bootable CD
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41485
This has a number of useful utilities included including "Image" [for DOS, by Terabyte] & "File Manager".

Or...
You could use...
c:\>dir /p [to display the contents of C: one page at a time]
OR...
a:\>dir c: /p

[jakkusto]

ok thanks for all the info guys...yeah maxtor diagnostics was something i ran b4 i even installed windows the first time, i ran all the tests and it had no problems. the HDD is brand new, and i partitioned it thru windows and formatted the c drive to ntfs as mentioned b4; im just gonna go write the zeros to it again and format the c drive to FAT to make sure im doing all this correctly. as for dos, i did correctly get the computer to "shift" its attention to the c drive no problem but of course i hadnt tried the sys c, which im gonna go try after i write zeros again....

[jakkusto]

ok so this time i formatted the C drive to FAT. the computer restarted and i booted from the dos floppy. entered all the commands and it downloaded all the files fine. then the computer restarted. now it promted me to a black screen to select which os to use, either the xp install or windows itself. clicking windows brings up dos, so i rebooted and did the install. then i got to the partitioning page in the installation, i selected the c drive, and i had the option to convert to NTFS, so i did that. while examaning my drive, windows promted me telling me that either i didnt have enough memory or that the installation cd is corrupt. i pushed enter and it continued on to installing it. it started copying the files and then stopped on teh file "bootvid.dll", stating it failed to install. it told me it coudl retry if i hit enter so i did but it brought the same screen up again almost instatnly. iv tried diong this a number of times with the same result everytime. just for fun i thought id see what would happen if i chose to skip installing that file and just continue. turns out that every file it tries to install encounters the same problem. i'm gonna try to borrow my friend's xp cd for now and see if i can install that, since i no that one isnt corrupt.