Installing windows XP

[Guest]

I have one of my users machines that encountered many viruses and although
Mcafee said it got rid of them all, suddenly windows is saying that I don't
have a legal copy of Windows XP. I looked at the product key on this
machine, and it doesn't match either one of our corporate licenses so I wiped
the machine and was attempting to reinstall windows XP.

After 3 attempts trying 3 different CDs each time the install stops not
being able to copy system files. I ran a hardware diagnostics on the machine
and it seems like everything passed, yet I can't install windows XP.

I've never encountered anything like this before and have tried everything I
know. Suggestions?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have one of my users machines that encountered many viruses and although
Mcafee said it got rid of them all, suddenly windows is saying that I don't
have a legal copy of Windows XP. I looked at the product key on this
machine, and it doesn't match either one of our corporate licenses so I wiped
the machine and was attempting to reinstall windows XP.

After 3 attempts trying 3 different CDs each time the install stops not
being able to copy system files. I ran a hardware diagnostics on the machine
and it seems like everything passed, yet I can't install windows XP.

I've never encountered anything like this before and have tried everything I
know. Suggestions?

Problems copying files or corrupted files during installation are
most often caused by defective, incompatible, or sub-standard hardware;
in order of likelihood, either RAM, the hard drive, or the motherboard.
On very rare occasions the CD drive or installation CD is the problem.



--

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. -Bertrum Russell

 

[RJ]

What if it isn't the hardware??
I tried overinstalling XP (rather than a clean install) and kept getting
file copy errors. Ran memtest for 8 hours, no errors in memory or mb. Took
it to the shop and the guy said it's probably a software problem and it
usually happens when you overinstall. He said to reformat and do a fresh
install and if it still doesn't work, it's a hardware problem. Since I don't
want to do that right away, are there any ways to troubleshoot software
configuration problems?

Problems copying files or corrupted files during installation are
most often caused by defective, incompatible, or sub-standard hardware;
in order of likelihood, either RAM, the hard drive, or the motherboard.
On very rare occasions the CD drive or installation CD is the problem.



--

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. -Bertrum

Russell

 

[Bruce Chambers]

What if it isn't the hardware??
I tried overinstalling XP (rather than a clean install) and kept getting
file copy errors. Ran memtest for 8 hours, no errors in memory or mb. Took
it to the shop and the guy said it's probably a software problem and it
usually happens when you overinstall. He said to reformat and do a fresh
install and if it still doesn't work, it's a hardware problem. Since I don't
want to do that right away, are there any ways to troubleshoot software
configuration problems?

No, not that I'm aware of. If you're confident that the hardware is
good (You did run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility,
didn't you?), then you final option is to attempt the clean installation.


--

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. -Bertrum Russell

 

[Guest]

I have already reformatted the drive 3 times in an attempt to do a fresh
install. I ran the IBM enhanced diagnostics test for all tests and much to
my surprise it passed, but I don't think that it does to much in depth
checking on the mother board.

It's got to be a hardware problem as I did a fresh install on another
machine just like it and it worked just fine, so I verified it's not the
media.

Since the very thing that made this machine go south, I"m wondering if
there's something in the boot record somewhere that's preventing me to do a
fresh install of windows. some of the system files it's saying it can't copy
from the XP CD are things like ks.sys, modem.sys and things like that.

I suppose the best place to start might be to remove the non-volatile
memory? Don't know, it's hard to say. Even though I reformatted the drive,
there's still something lingering.

If removing the non-volatile memory doesn't do the trick, my next move is
going to be to try and FDISK it using the /mbr extension, but I'm not sure
that's going to work.

The saga goes on...

 

[Guest]

Much to my surprise, I booted with a windows 98 disk ran FDISK /mbr and
apparently that fixed the problem because now I was able to successfully
install windows XP.