fdisk

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S

Star

(damn cut and paste)
Hi,
My neighbor's computer is driving us nuts. She has a fairly new copy of
XP Home. Her child was playing a game when the blue death screen appeared.
We researched the stop error and in safe mode tried "Last Good Known
Configuration". To make it short, it did not work. So we check all
resolutions on my computer, even "Verified that the hardware is listed on
the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) of the Microsoft Windows Hardware
Quality Labs"; it was. So that night she decides to wipe her hard drive
completely (fdisk), then clean reinstall with the XP restore CD. *Then* she
gets the "Setup cannot find the End-User License Agreement (EULA). Setup
will not continue." She starts another clean install with the cd to change
from fats to ntfs. Reinstall was going well until we reach the step to
choose the partitions; empty blue space appears for about 15, 20 minutes,
then FINALLY we get the partion options and change from fats to ntfs. At
some point after this, we get the "ntrdl.file is missing, Press any key to
restart". We research Base Article - 314057 which says "causes -This
behavior occurs only if Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me is installed
on a large-capacity drive that uses the FAT32 file system". We tried a third
time. Same deal.

Damn it. I give up. She has driven me totally nuts. I HAVE MADE
umpteen million trips back and forth from her house to mine, I'm hungry and
now even iller because among hunting her a fix, the rest of my time spent on
my computer is has been having to download YET ANOTHER DAMN PATCH OR AV
UPDATE. Her kids are mad because Mom "tore up the computer", and her husband
has determined that computers are the gateway to hell.

We have found 2 resolutions. We have read that we need to (1) set BIOS
to boot from CD, or (2) fdisk can erase the hard drive as well - that she
should have left it alone, and that she cant ever reinstall XP from THAT cd,
and that she will have to buy another copy of XP.

Any ideas on this before I shoot or slap her?

Thanks a million,

Star
 
Why not do the first of the 2 resolutions you proposed at the end of your
email. Changing the bios to boot of the cd is no big deal and it will allow
you to format the partition and really do a clean install.
 
There is nothing wrong with the advice you were given in the previous post.
Boot from the CD delete all existing partitions and create a new one and let
windows install to that partition.
Fdisk is a DOS program & shouldn't be used to install XP.

Neil
 
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