I cant reload windows

[Adam]

Allright here is what is happening...
I have installed windows xp pro a number of times on a AMD 2000+
machine that I have. I have never really had a problem with doing
this. Recently I installed service pack 1 because I needed it for a
usb 2.0 card that I was going to use. All went well. The USB card did
not work before I installed SP1 but worked fine after.

Well, some time went by and something happend causing me to wipe the
hard drive and forcing me to reinstall the OS again. I did not think
anything of it untill I began the install. As it began copying the
setup files it indicated that it could not read one of the files and
asked me to retry or skip. After retrying a few times I decided to
just skip. That worked for less than a second and then another file
would not copy. Finally it was file after file that would not copy. I
took the installation disk out to inspect it for scratches and there
were none. I tried everything to get it to copy those files but failed
every time. I even created a number of partitions on the hard drive
and after formatting them all tried each one of them with the same
poor results.

By this time I am thinking that I have a bad hard drive or something
so I went out and bought a brand new one. I tried the install on this
new hard drive and produced the exact same results. I was beginning to
wonder what the heck was going on so I tried a little experiment. I
put the origonal hard drive in another (older) computer (AMD athlon
500) and tried the install again. It worked! Every file copied
perfectly and it went thought in installation process as it always
had. This older machine had never had SP1 installed on it.

I dont think I have a bad cdrom drive. I have two installed on the AMD
2000 machine. One is a Sony cd burner and the other is a DVD rom
drive. I tried the install from both drives and got he same exact
results. I just dont see how both of these drives could have failed at
the same time.

I am at a loss. I really need to get this OS installed again. I have
read in a couple of places that SP1 can mess with your bios. I dont
know if it is true but I can not explain why the install files will
not copy. If there is anyone out there that has any insight to my
problem I would love the input.

Thanks.

 

[Jim]

-----Original Message-----
Allright here is what is happening...
I have installed windows xp pro a number of times on a AMD 2000+
machine that I have. I have never really had a problem with doing
this. Recently I installed service pack 1 because I needed it for a
usb 2.0 card that I was going to use. All went well. The USB card did
not work before I installed SP1 but worked fine after.

Well, some time went by and something happend causing me to wipe the
hard drive and forcing me to reinstall the OS again. I did not think
anything of it untill I began the install. As it began copying the
setup files it indicated that it could not read one of the files and
asked me to retry or skip. After retrying a few times I decided to
just skip. That worked for less than a second and then another file
would not copy. Finally it was file after file that would not copy. I
took the installation disk out to inspect it for scratches and there
were none. I tried everything to get it to copy those files but failed
every time. I even created a number of partitions on the hard drive
and after formatting them all tried each one of them with the same
poor results.

By this time I am thinking that I have a bad hard drive or something
so I went out and bought a brand new one. I tried the install on this
new hard drive and produced the exact same results. I was beginning to
wonder what the heck was going on so I tried a little experiment. I
put the origonal hard drive in another (older) computer (AMD athlon
500) and tried the install again. It worked! Every file copied
perfectly and it went thought in installation process as it always
had. This older machine had never had SP1 installed on it.

I dont think I have a bad cdrom drive. I have two installed on the AMD
2000 machine. One is a Sony cd burner and the other is a DVD rom
drive. I tried the install from both drives and got he same exact
results. I just dont see how both of these drives could have failed at
the same time.

I am at a loss. I really need to get this OS installed again. I have
read in a couple of places that SP1 can mess with your bios. I dont
know if it is true but I can not explain why the install files will
not copy. If there is anyone out there that has any insight to my
problem I would love the input.

Thanks.
.

Hello
are you using a 3rd party partitioning tool XP will
conflict with most of them, the XP cd has all the
necessary tools built in to delete and format the
harddrive just boot from CD and follow the instuctions
half way through the install when the puter restarts do
not Press any Key to Boot from CD, be sure to disconnect
everything except the mouse,keyboard,monitor before
begining.
Hope this helps
Jim

 

[Kardon Coupé]

I had a simlar problem, and it turned out to be a memory dimm, try removing
and reseating your memory.

 

[JAX]

Try removing the USB 2 card and then installing XP. It may be causing a
conflict.

LOL, JAX

 

[Adam]

Well I have great news.

Before I post questions on here I try my best to find the answers here
in google groups. It turns out I was not asking the best questions.
After a little more searching I found my answer.
Mr. Kardon Coupe indeed had the correct answer.
In between my last installation of windows and this one, I installed
512mb of RAM. It did not enter my mind that would be an issue. So,
last nighrt I took out the extra memory and tried the install again.
It worked perfectly.

I have another question now though. If it was causing thouse problems
before, does it continue to cause problems while I am actually running
windows? Is the extra memory really helping at all? Is there a program
out there that I can use to compare my system with the old memory
setup and the new one. I will say that I had a 256mb stick in there
before and I added a 512mb stick to it making a total of 768mb of
memory. Is it bad to mix the different size memory sticks?

Thanks for the replys everyone.

 

[Malke]

Well I have great news.

Before I post questions on here I try my best to find the answers here
in google groups. It turns out I was not asking the best questions.
After a little more searching I found my answer.
Mr. Kardon Coupe indeed had the correct answer.
In between my last installation of windows and this one, I installed
512mb of RAM. It did not enter my mind that would be an issue. So,
last nighrt I took out the extra memory and tried the install again.
It worked perfectly.

I have another question now though. If it was causing thouse problems
before, does it continue to cause problems while I am actually running
windows? Is the extra memory really helping at all? Is there a program
out there that I can use to compare my system with the old memory
setup and the new one. I will say that I had a 256mb stick in there
before and I added a 512mb stick to it making a total of 768mb of
memory. Is it bad to mix the different size memory sticks?

Thanks for the replys everyone.

Hi, Adam. I'm glad you figured out the problem. I like to use Memtest86
(from www.memtest86.com) to test memory. Having more memory is always
better, but if the two sticks are not compatible with your motherboard
or each other, that will cause bad problems. I would run Memtest86 on
the sticks and see what comes up. It's free.

Cheers,

Malke