cannot get xp to reinstall

[StevenW]

I have a 6 year old Dell Dimension with XP Home with Automatic Updates. The
hard disk (Seagate Baracuda PATA/100 320Gb) is less than a year old and less
than 10% full. 2 weeks ago, Outlook Express crashed. At the same time,
Windows Updates failed to install. Worked thru the update problem with MS
email support (using web mail) and got Windows Update back up; dowloaded and
installed 3 "critical" updates. Then reinstalled IE7 to try to reload Outlook
Express 6. After IE7 installed, the computer restarted to complete
installation, but never rebooted. All I got was a blinking non-responsive
cursor in the upper left hand corner of the screen.

I removed the hard drive, put it in a USB case and hooked up to another
computer as a slave. I copied all files and then returned it as Master to
the original computer, booted from the Dell Windows XP installation CD and
entered Windows set up. After trying a repair that was ineffective, I
deleted the existing partition, did a full reformatting of the disk (took 90
minutes), and attempted a completely new install of XP. After loading the
first set of files, the computer automatically restarts, but will not boot up
or continue the installation. I still just get the same blinking
non-responsive cursor in the upper left hand corner of the screen. I have
tried again several times, all with the same result. The disk appears fine
and appears to spin normally when loading the XP files. It also worked fine
as a slave drive.

Nothing but keyboard, mouse and monitor are connected to that computer.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thx

 

[DL]

Seagate have a test utility available on their site (seatools), with which
you create a bootable cd / floppy to test your HD
Also www.memtest.org have a utility for checking memory

 

[Anna]

Seagate have a test utility available on their site (seatools), with which
you create a bootable cd / floppy to test your HD
Also www.memtest.org have a utility for checking memory

StevenW:
As "DL" recommends, you most certainly should check out the Seagate disk
with the HDD diagnostic utility available from Seagate's site. And there's
no harm in testing the RAM as well.

In the meantime, let me make another suggestion on the chance that the HDD
is non-defective...

Assuming that you deleted the existing partition, created a new partition,
and formatted the disk via the XP installation CD during the failed attempt
to fresh-install the OS, try this alternate approach...

Reinstall the problem HDD again as a secondary HDD in your other machine.
Use the Disk Management utility to delete any partition(s) it detects on the
disk. Create a partition and format same, hopefully not running into any
problems along the way. If a problem does arise in the sense that you cannot
create a partition or the formatting process is unsuccessful, then go no
further here.

Assuming the partitioning/formatting process is successful via Disk
Management, i.e., no indications that anything is amiss with that process...

I'm assuming your Dell machine has a floppy disk drive - if you have a DOS
boot floppy disk (a Win9x/Me Startup Disk, for example), you may want to
"zero-out" the disk using a simple software program to do so. The one we've
used for years is the "zap" program. It's a program we've used for more
years than I care to remember!

It's a DOS-based software program that simply writes zeroes to the first 128
sectors on a HDD, including the Master Boot Record (MBR) and the first
Partition Boot Record. It does a fine job of purging the MBR of any malware
infestation. And it does its job in a flash.

The program was originally available from IBM and AFAIK one of the few
(maybe the only!) sites that offer this (free) program is at...
http://www.tburke.net/info/utils/

After running the executable file, two files will be created - the zap.com
and zap.txt; the latter file describing the program and its use. Since zap
is designed to work from a DOS environment, the two files are copied to a
bootable floppy disk, e.g., a Win9x/Me "Startup Disk".

Using the program is simplicity itself. At the A:\ prompt the zap command is
invoked indicating the HDD number, presumably zap 0. Following a
confirmation message and executing the command the drive will be "zapped" in
a moment or two.

Understand that after using the program *all* data on the HDD is, for all
practical purposes, unrecoverable. The HDD is returned to a state ready to
be initialized, partitioned, and formatted.

Again, all the above may be unsuccessful attempts to "resurrect" your
problem HDD in order to access its contents, especially so should the disk
be mechanically/electronically defective. We've had some success with using
this program where it appeared we were dealing with a "dead" drive - yet we
were able to bring the disk back to life for an indeterminate period of
time. Anyway, I thought you may want to give it a shot as a kind of last
resort. But whatever happens, continue to backup your data on a frequent &
routine basis.
Anna