Disk I/O error when trying to install Windows XP

[jrgrady]

Hi guys,

I recently bought a computer from my company. They do this about once a
month. They sell computers used within the company previously that they no
longer need. They wipe out the hard drives and then sell them. It is an
older dell, between 1997 and 2000. The problem I have having is when i try
to load windows XP using the 6 boot disks from Microsoft.com. I get an error
saying "Disk I/O Error".........I thought it was simply a bad floppy drive,
but i bought a new one and put it in and that is not the case. What do you
guys think?.....could it be the hard drive? I just don't see how it could be
the hard drive though because they test these before they send them out.....
they wouldn't sell me a faulty system.

Also, since receiving this error, I have decided to put inn one of my other
cd-roms from one of my other systems. But the BIOS doesn't recognize it.
How could i get the system to recognize the cd-rom? Because if there is a
problem with the floppy drive, then maybe i could try and boot off the cd-rom.
On the other hand, if there is a problem with the hard drive, than this won't
work either. Sorry for the length of the message. Hope you guys can help me
out. Thanks

 

[George Bashore]

sounds like a hd problem
since it is so old the hd might have disk management on it
when u boot up w/o anything in the floppy or cd drive do u see any quick
message to chose boot device?
is the hd connected properly? (master pin on, connected to the primary
controller, formatted, electric hooked to hd)
do the bios pick up the correct hd?
try using a boot disk from win98 or winme and do an fdisk to set ur primary
partition and set active, reboot and format to fat32, u can change to ntfs
when you set up xp.
did u try the hd in a working computer?

 

[jrgrady via WindowsKB.com]

Hey George,

Thanks for writing me back. I am going to answer your questions in the order
they were asked.

You asked: when u boot up w/o anything in the floppy or cd drive do u see any
quick
message to chose boot device?

Answer: No. Whenever there is nothing in the floppy, it exits from
everything and asks me to press F1 to retry or press F2 to go to setup.

You asked: is the hd connected properly? (master pin on, connected to the
primary

controller, formatted, electric hooked to hd)

Answer: Yes, I believe everything is hooked up correctly. There is really
only one way you can hook these things up.....the connectors will only go one
way because of the way they are designed.

You asked: do the bios pick up the correct hd?

Answer: I believe so. When i go into the setup, in the boot sequence, C:
Hard Drive is one of the options there.

You asked: did u try the hd in a working computer?

Answer: Yes. I put the hard drive in my working computer and it detected it.
It said "No operating system was found. So i installed windows xp from there.
And about 30 minutes later put it back in the old computer and i got a
windows error saying some hardware was missing or windows was shut down
abruptly. I figured that probably wouldn't work seeing how this computer is
much older than my working one. Anyways....let me know what you think.
Thanks man.

 

[George Bashore]

It is an

older dell, between 1997 and 2000

Did you check the hardware compatibility list for this computer?
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx

Answer: Yes, I believe everything is hooked up correctly. There is really
only one way you can hook these things up.....the connectors will only go
one
way because of the way they are designed.

Is the hd connected to the primary controller and the cd to the secondary
controller on the mb. They can be hooked up wrong. In your original post
you stated it didn't recognize the cd.

Answer: Yes. I put the hard drive in my working computer and it detected
it.
It said "No operating system was found. So i installed windows xp from
there.
And about 30 minutes later put it back in the old computer and i got a
windows error saying some hardware was missing or windows was shut down
abruptly. I figured that probably wouldn't work seeing how this computer
is
much older than my working one. Anyways....let me know what you think.

Unless you have 2 computers that are the same, running the xp setup on one
computer and moving the hd to another computer will cause errors.
To do a repair installation follow these steps:

Configure your computer to start from the CD-ROM drive. For more information
about how to do this, please refer to your computer's documentation or
contact your computer manufacturer.

Insert your Windows XP compact disc (CD) into your CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM
drive, and then restart your computer.

(You can also boot with a Windows 98/Me Startup disk with CD support and run
WINNT.EXE in the I386 folder on the CD)

When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message is displayed on your
screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.

When you see the following message displayed on the Welcome to Setup screen,
press ENTER:

To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

At this point an option to press R to enter the Recovery Console is
displayed. Do not select this option.

On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the
license agreement.

Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected in the
box, and then press the R key to repair Windows XP.

Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.

 

[jrgrady via WindowsKB.com]

Thanks a lot man. It worked great. You were a lot of help.