Can't reinstall. Why?

[Guest]

I have a new PC that came with Vista Ultimate. It sucks. I can't use
FrontPage and it won't read my Flash drives (just 2 of the annoyances). I
tried creating a Virtual PC on it and running XP Pro there, but it turned out
to be more trouble than it was worth, so I want to reformat my hard drive and
reload my copy of XP Pro, which I bought from a retail store a few years ago
and have used with no problems (I've reinstalled it several times before on
other machines). Here's my problem, when I try to boot from the CD I get to a
screen that says "There is no disk in this drive." If I try to do something
(anything) on that screen, I get to a page with a lot of words but with the
following error messages:
setupdd.sys: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA.

I also get a serious of technical codes (these change a little each time I
try this). I think the most significant of the codes is:

usbohci.sys - Address F78A2798 base at F78A2798 Datestamp 00000000

A similar one was:
setupdd.sys Address F741CFCB base at F73F2000 DateStamp 3d6dd67F

Why can't I use my CD to reformat and load XP Pro?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have a new PC that came with Vista Ultimate. It sucks. I can't use
FrontPage ....

FrontPage 2003 works just fine on my Vista Business system. What
version are you using?

What happens when you try? What specific error messages do you get?
What do your system event logs report? What specific troubleshooting
steps have you already taken, and what were the results of each?

I'm afraid that no one can help if you don't provide at least a
modicum of pertinent information.

Help us help you:

.... and it won't read my Flash drives (just 2 of the annoyances).

I've yet to have Vista fail to read any non-defective flash drives.

Again, what happens when you try? What specific error messages do you
get? What do your system event logs report? What specific
troubleshooting steps have you already taken, and what were the results
of each? I'm afraid that no one can help if you don't provide at least
a modicum of pertinent information.

I
tried creating a Virtual PC on it and running XP Pro there, but it turned out
to be more trouble than it was worth, so I want to reformat my hard drive and
reload my copy of XP Pro, which I bought from a retail store a few years ago
and have used with no problems (I've reinstalled it several times before on
other machines). Here's my problem, when I try to boot from the CD I get to a
screen that says "There is no disk in this drive." If I try to do something
(anything) on that screen, I get to a page with a lot of words but with the
following error messages:
setupdd.sys: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA.

I also get a serious of technical codes (these change a little each time I
try this). I think the most significant of the codes is:

usbohci.sys - Address F78A2798 base at F78A2798 Datestamp 00000000

A similar one was:
setupdd.sys Address F741CFCB base at F73F2000 DateStamp 3d6dd67F

Why can't I use my CD to reformat and load XP Pro?

It's patently clear that the WinXP installation CD doesn't have a
driver for the IDE/SATA controller (and probably not for any of the
other components) built-in to the new computer. Very early in the boot
process, just after having booted from the WinXP CD, the screen will
display the words to the effect: "Setup is examining your system."
Press <F6> when this happens, and have the *manufacturer's*
WinXP-specific drivers for your IDE/SATA controller available on a
floppy disk.

There could be a couple possible adverse repercussions, however, of
which you should be aware. First and foremost, if the specific computer
model in question was designed specifically for Vista, there may very
well be *NO* WinXP-specific device drivers available to make the
computer's diverse components work properly. Consult the computer's
manufacturer about the availability of device drivers. Secondly,
removing an OEM-installed operating system and replacing it with another
will almost invariably void any and all support agreements and,
sometimes, even the warranty. You would, at the very least, have to
re-install Vista before getting any support from the manufacturer.
Again, consult the computer's manufacturer for specifics.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Bruce Chambers]

FrontPage 2003 works just fine on my Vista Business system. What
version are you using?

Oops! Typo. That should have read: "FrontPage 2002 works ....."


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Guest]

Bruce,

Thanks for the response. I appreciate your offering comments about my FP and
flash drive issues but I wasn't actually looking for feedback on those
problems. I've been troubleshooting them to the point that I'm no longer
interested in doing so - unless there is absolutely no option.

(The problems I seem to be having are well documented on the web as problems
many others are facing. FP won't recognize the files in my existing sites (no
individual pages from my existing sites). The problem with the flash drives
(and all of my flash drives work fine on other computers) is that when I try
to launch one I get a dialog scfeen saying I need a driver. I search,
including the manufacturers site, but no drivers are available. In fact, the
documentation says specifically that no driver is necessary. I found,
courtesy of others who have had the same problem, a cumbersome workaround. If
you plug in the flash drive then reboot the PC, you can use the flash drive.
It will still ask you for a driver, but if you say "later" it will let you
use the flash drive.)

The advice I'm looking for specifically is how to get friggin' Vista off my
computer so I can use my tried and true version of XP Pro. I believe that I
should be fine loading XP Pro because I loaded it once already in Virtual PC
on my computer and verified that it was up and running there. That would tell
me, I believe, that I have the necessary driver for the IDE/SATA controller.
My problem is I want to start over again, completely reformat my hard drive
and load XP Pro as my primary operating system and it won't let me.

Any advice specific to this issue?

Wiley

 

[Guest]

Bruce,

First, thank you for trying to help and doing so quickly. I'm frustrated and
your response is appreciated. Having said that, I wasn't actually looking for
what I might do to make FP 2002 and my flash drives work. I've troubleshooted
these things until I'm blue in the face. Both my issues are well documented
by others on the web with similar problems while using Vista. I just don't
want to waste any more time on trying to make these and other Vista burps
work.

My desire is to get friggin' Vista off my PC and replace it with my
tried-and-true version of XP Pro. I know I have the necessary drivers to do
it because I was able to successfully load XP Pro into a Virtual PC partition
on my PC. I found the Virtual PC interface cumbersome (for instance, the
screen window is small and there appears to be nothing you can do to make it
full screen). Is my reasoning wrong that if I can install my XP Pro in the
Virtual PC mode on my computer that I should be able to install XP Pro as a
standalone? I just want to reformat my hard drive and start over with my XP
Pro. This should be simple. I've installed XP Pro many times.

Is it possible to install it as a second operating system on the PC? Of
course, since it's not giving me the install option, that's not an option now
anyway.

When I got my new PC, I made a restore version of Vista. Should I boot up
with that disk and try to do a clean install? I'm not sure that would do
anything for me other than wiping all my data off the disk. My data is not my
concern. (I have it all backed up.)

There must be a somewhat simple answer to this problem. Right?

Wiley

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Bruce,

The advice I'm looking for specifically is how to get friggin' Vista off my
computer so I can use my tried and true version of XP Pro. I believe that I
should be fine loading XP Pro because I loaded it once already in Virtual PC
on my computer and verified that it was up and running there. That would tell
me, I believe, that I have the necessary driver for the IDE/SATA controller.

No, it wouldn't mean that at all. I can't even begin to imagine how
anyone could think it would.

Successfully installing and using WinXP in a virtual machine's
simulated generic "hardware" environment would have absolutely *NO*
bearing on how well WinXP would install and work directly on real, and
very different, hardware. The host OS and its device drivers are
providing all of the interaction between the hardware and the guest OS.

My problem is I want to start over again, completely reformat my hard drive
and load XP Pro as my primary operating system and it won't let me.

Any advice specific to this issue?

Again, contact the computer's manufacturer to see if the computer can
be made to support WinXP and obtain any necessary device drivers.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[nick]

FWIW - I have removed Vista from several computers with no
troubles. In all cases I have re-partitioned the hard drive
and formatted both partitions, then installed XP Pro into
the C: partition. MoBo drivers from the MoBo disc have always
installed. Then again, most of my hardware is from pre-Vista
days. This includes SATA drives.


In all cases the PC runs way better under XP than it did
under Vista. Wonder why that is??

nick

 

[Bob I]

FWIW - I have removed Vista from several computers with no
troubles. In all cases I have re-partitioned the hard drive
and formatted both partitions, then installed XP Pro into
the C: partition. MoBo drivers from the MoBo disc have always
installed. Then again, most of my hardware is from pre-Vista
days. This includes SATA drives.


In all cases the PC runs way better under XP than it did
under Vista. Wonder why that is??

nick

Lower hardware requirements.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

"In all cases the PC runs way better under XP than it did under Vista.
Wonder why that is??"
This is not new to Windows Vista.
Like every other operating system before, the requirements have gone
up.
Also users are demanding more of software which is ultimately the
driving force for the rise.

However many have reported better performance on a Clean Install of
Windows Vista compared to a Clean Install of Windows XP on the same
computer.

 

[Guest]

Nick,

Thank you for your post. Would you walk me through what you've done in the
past to remove Vista and install XP Pro. Is there anything that I need to
confirm ahead of time? Is a driver(s) for my motherboard an issue? I truly
appreciate your help.

Wiley

 

[HeyBub]

I have a new PC that came with Vista Ultimate. It sucks. I can't use
FrontPage and it won't read my Flash drives (just 2 of the
annoyances). I tried creating a Virtual PC on it and running XP Pro
there, but it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth, so I
want to reformat my hard drive and reload my copy of XP Pro, which I
bought from a retail store a few years ago and have used with no
problems (I've reinstalled it several times before on other
machines). Here's my problem, when I try to boot from the CD I get to
a screen that says "There is no disk in this drive." If I try to do
something (anything) on that screen, I get to a page with a lot of
words but with the following error messages:
setupdd.sys: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA.

I also get a serious of technical codes (these change a little each
time I try this). I think the most significant of the codes is:

usbohci.sys - Address F78A2798 base at F78A2798 Datestamp 00000000

A similar one was:
setupdd.sys Address F741CFCB base at F73F2000 DateStamp 3d6dd67F

Why can't I use my CD to reformat and load XP Pro?

Do you have a SATA drive? These are non-native to XP.

 

[Daave]

Wiley, as Bruce said, you need to determine whether or not your PC is
*capable* of running XP (yes, this would be a hardware/drivers issue).
What is the make and model of your PC?

 

[Steven Wabik]

first of all what PC do you have? it would be helpful in knowing. at times
of of the newer PCs just do not support XP at all. i have noticed it in some
of them. some can boot from the XP install CD and some can not. i think it
is something in the vista partition.

i know this because i beta tested vista under a dual boot configuration. at
this point do you still have vista on your PC? as long as vista is
installed, the XP install CD will not load.... microsoft pointed that out on
the windows vista beta web site. first of all we need to get vista poff of
the PC...

is there a partitioning utility in the vista recovery CD? or do you have a
floppy drive and can you use a floppy drive to reformate the disk? if you
use the v recovery disk to partition the hard disk, just delete the main
partition, do not create any new ones if possibile.

 

[dobey]

first of all what PC do you have? it would be helpful in knowing. at times
of of the newer PCs just do not support XP at all. i have noticed it in
some of them. some can boot from the XP install CD and some can not. i
think it is something in the vista partition.

i know this because i beta tested vista under a dual boot configuration.
at this point do you still have vista on your PC? as long as vista is
installed, the XP install CD will not load.... microsoft pointed that out
on the windows vista beta web site. first of all we need to get vista poff
of the PC...

is there a partitioning utility in the vista recovery CD? or do you have a
floppy drive and can you use a floppy drive to reformate the disk? if you
use the v recovery disk to partition the hard disk, just delete the main
partition, do not create any new ones if possibile.

I have heard some suggestion XP won't/can't install on Vista's version of
NTFS.

 

[Steven Wabik]

thats true. just like operating systems that have fat32 partitions car read
NTFS partitions. the same thing applies in this case. in Windows 2000 SP4 a
new version of NTFS was released. i guessed the released a new version of it
with vista.

if this is the case than XP should support the new NTFS file format properly
in the newest service pack once it is released.

the other reason that is causing the XP install isuue is that vista does not
use boot.ini to start anymore. it uses bcd.exe now a days.

microsoft set it up so that you can not install XP over vista. to put XP on
a vista PC it can be tricky because when vista is on the pc it will not let
you boot from the XP install CD because of the bcd.exe boot file. you need
to reformat the hard drive first so that it is blank. once the hard drive is
blank and all you should be able to boot from the XP install CD on the vista
PC and install XP on it like any older PC like back in the day.

if you have floppy drive support on your PC and stuff i sugguest you format
your hard drive using a floppy drive utlity. at times it will work best in
this casein my opinion since you can not boot from the XP install CD. i had
to format the disk via a floppy disk utility to restore XP from when i was
beta testing vista, just because i could not boot from the XP install CD
when vista was install. they even pointed that out on the vista web site....
if you want my floppy drive utility i will send it to you. i can put it on
my web server for you to download.

 

[Steven Wabik]

you can use a floppy drive to reformate the disk drive. you can use a
utility like norton partition magic. having that kind of utility on a floppy
disk is usful. it still lets you do the same stuff as if you were do it
through the windows version. it is just much simpler. and it will let you
leave the recovery partition alone if there is one.

when using te utility just delete the vista partition. and leave the
recovery partition alone if there is one. after that you should be able to
boot from the XP boot CD and install XP. there are other floppy utilities
for formating the hard drive as well. i suggest letting the XP installer
format the hard drive.