I hope I'm still able to install XP

[mic]

I'm building my own PC, after I got all the hardware
together, I installed XP. It seemed to take a long time.
I realized that I didn't install the Seagate driver for
the hard drive, so I went into Bios and had the PC boot
from the CD drive and installed and reformatted the hard
drive. Now I can't reinstall XP. I get this error
message, "RegOpenKeyEx(SYSTEM\Setup\Pid)returned error2
(2)." Perhaps I was supposed to use the Seagate CD in
windows? I think I'm screwed. Please advise, anyone?

 

[Phillips]

Reformat the HDD using the Seagate CD utilities. If XP still fails to
reinstall, write 0's on the HDD using the Seagate CD utilities. You should
be clean and fresh.
Michael

 

[JAX]

Your XP CD has all the tools you need to install. Set your BIOS to 1st boot
from CD. Disconnect everything from you computer except the mouse, keyboard,
and monitor. Then follow the instructions from the following link for a
clean install of XP.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
Thanks to Michael Stevens

HTH, JAX

 

[mic]

Thank you, for your help. Pardon my ignorance but how do
I write 0's on the HDD?

 

[mic]

Thanks for your help, I'll check out the site. I'm not
sure it will work 'cause I have a USB mouse that doesn't
work w/o XP.

 

[JAX]

No need to go there!

JAX

Thank you, for your help. Pardon my ignorance but how do
I write 0's on the HDD?

 

[JAX]

If you have a problem, a PS2 mouse won't cost much. It seems that you can
maneuver via keyboard though, I don't remember.

LOL, JAX

 

[Phillips]

Check on the Seagate Utilities Disk - there should be an option to write 0
(Quick and Full - takes hours for the latter) to write 0's. You should use
this when you suspect a virus or other hidden files that might become active
while XP is installed - it shouldn't be so, but XP might find older
installation files and try to solve those first. You might find, for ex.,
that your XP activation grace period (30 days) starts w/ the date of your
previous installation attempt.
As for the mouse, being USB, you will need the USB drivers that will be
installed only from w/in XP. Just go ahead w/o a mouse when installing XP -
you can find a list of XP kboard commands on Internet. Of course, as JAX
suggests, get a PS2 mouse till you can install the USB one if you don't want
to bother w/ the mouse. The mouse is necessary for editing graphic files,
you can do w/o in every day IT-life.
Michael

 

[JAX]

Hi Michael,

My reference to maneuvering with the keyboard was about installing XP. Now
that I think about it, I seem to remember needing the mouse to set the time
zone and maybe a few other things. I'm not going to re-install just to
refresh my memory though.<grin>

Cheers, JAX

 

[mic]

Hi JAX & Michael,

Thanks for your help. I tried to use the XP CD but I just
kept getting a resuming setup message. Then the same
error. Perhaps it might have to do with SP1, maybe not.
Http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.php is great at explaining
this. I'm going to use the Seagate CD to erase and
reformat the HDD, then reinstall XP. If that doesn't work
then use the XP to reformatt and partition after erasing
w/ Seagate. If that doesn't work I'll look for writing
0's on Seagate Utilities. I think one of those'll work.
Yeah, the keyboard works for installing XP.
Mike

 

[JAX]

LOL, JAX

Hi JAX & Michael,

Thanks for your help. I tried to use the XP CD but I just
kept getting a resuming setup message. Then the same
error. Perhaps it might have to do with SP1, maybe not.
Http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.php is great at explaining
this. I'm going to use the Seagate CD to erase and
reformat the HDD, then reinstall XP. If that doesn't work
then use the XP to reformatt and partition after erasing
w/ Seagate. If that doesn't work I'll look for writing
0's on Seagate Utilities. I think one of those'll work.
Yeah, the keyboard works for installing XP.
Mike

 

[mic]

Hi JAX & Michael,

Success! Michael's plan worked. I repartitioned &
reformatted w/ the Seagate CD then used the XP CD. It
worked. The only way XP is going to get out of that PC is
if the HDD crashes! I'm not messing w/ it.

Mike