problems reinstalling xp from cd

[pat]

My old HP will not boot up. I tried the system recovery option but that too
seems to be corrupted as even after going through the recovery process, it
can not load xp. Sooo, I have been trying to reinstall my xp from the cd
setup disk but my computer will not boot to the cdrom or dvdrom drive. I
have gone in to the bios setup and made sure that the option to boot to cd
is enabled but neither drive is being recognized and so the computer keeps
booting to the hard disk and then cannot load xp. I booted to floppy with a
DOS disk but when I try to go to either my E: or F: drives, I get "invalid
drive" error. I have gone to the microsoft site and even downloaded a
program that is supposed to start an install from floppy. I went through
the process of making the floppy disks but when it gets to floppy disk #2, I
get a NTKRNLMP.exe cannot load, code 7 error. Then the floppy disk install
fails as well. Is my computer totally "toast" or can anybody help me get it
to boot to cd and I can hopefully get xp reinstalled and up and working
again. Thanks.

 

[philo]

My old HP will not boot up. I tried the system recovery option but that too
seems to be corrupted as even after going through the recovery process, it
can not load xp. Sooo, I have been trying to reinstall my xp from the cd
setup disk but my computer will not boot to the cdrom or dvdrom drive. I
have gone in to the bios setup and made sure that the option to boot to cd
is enabled but neither drive is being recognized and so the computer keeps
booting to the hard disk and then cannot load xp. I booted to floppy with a
DOS disk but when I try to go to either my E: or F: drives, I get "invalid
drive" error. I have gone to the microsoft site and even downloaded a
program that is supposed to start an install from floppy. I went through
the process of making the floppy disks but when it gets to floppy disk #2, I
get a NTKRNLMP.exe cannot load, code 7 error. Then the floppy disk install
fails as well. Is my computer totally "toast" or can anybody help me get it
to boot to cd and I can hopefully get xp reinstalled and up and working
again. Thanks.

Sounds like a hardware problem.

I'd start out with a RAM test

and also run the mfg's HD diagnosis

 

[Malke]

My old HP will not boot up. I tried the system recovery option but that
too seems to be corrupted as even after going through the recovery
process, it can not load xp. Sooo, I have been trying to reinstall my
xp from the cd setup disk but my computer will not boot to the cdrom or
dvdrom drive. I have gone in to the bios setup and made sure that the
option to boot to cd is enabled but neither drive is being recognized
and so the computer keeps booting to the hard disk and then cannot load
xp. I booted to floppy with a DOS disk but when I try to go to either
my E: or F: drives, I get "invalid drive" error. I have gone to the
microsoft site and even downloaded a program that is supposed to start
an install from floppy. I went through the process of making the floppy
disks but when it gets to floppy disk #2, I get a NTKRNLMP.exe cannot
load, code 7 error. Then the floppy disk install fails as well. Is my
computer totally "toast" or can anybody help me get it to boot to cd and
I can hopefully get xp reinstalled and up and working again. Thanks.

If none of the drives are recognized in the BIOS, you have major
hardware failure - probably the motherboard. While the RAM could
certainly be bad also (as suggested by another poster), this would not
impact the BIOS not seeing drives. Hence my guess (and of course it *is*
a guess since I can't see your machine) of a failing motherboard.

You can try swapping the drive cables out, trying new drives, try a new
power supply (see the troubleshooting link below for details) but if the
computer is more than 5 years old it probably has reached the end of its
life.

If your "old HP" is more than a few years old and out of warranty, it
won't be worth trying to repair if it is a bad motherboard. You'd need
to get the exact same motherboard from HP or your Restore Disks won't
work. Contact HP tech support for more information as to the cost.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot

Or take the machine to a a professional computer repair shop (not your
local equivalent of BigComputerStore/GeekSquad) for a diagnosis.


Malke

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

My old HP will not boot up. I tried the system recovery option but that
too seems to be corrupted as even after going through the recovery
process, it can not load xp. Sooo, I have been trying to reinstall my xp
from the cd setup disk but my computer will not boot to the cdrom or
dvdrom drive. I have gone in to the bios setup and made sure that the
option to boot to cd is enabled but neither drive is being recognized and
so the computer keeps booting to the hard disk and then cannot load xp. I
booted to floppy with a DOS disk but when I try to go to either my E: or
F: drives, I get "invalid drive" error. I have gone to the microsoft
site and even downloaded a program that is supposed to start an install
from floppy. I went through the process of making the floppy disks but
when it gets to floppy disk #2, I get a NTKRNLMP.exe cannot load, code 7
error. Then the floppy disk install fails as well. Is my computer
totally "toast" or can anybody help me get it to boot to cd and I can
hopefully get xp reinstalled and up and working again. Thanks.

You mention the "Invalid drive" error when you attempt to access
drives E: or F:. There might be a simple reason for this: If these
drives use NTFS then your DOS disk won't see them. Running
ntfsdos.exe (www.sysinternals.com) will give you read-only
access to them.

About your bigger problem - loading WinXP while unable to
boot from your CD drive - you could do this to resolve it:
1. Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com.
It includes a CD driver.
2. If you can now access your Win98 CD then continue like so:
3. Run delpart.exe (http://www.russelltexas.com/delpart.htm)
to delete all existing partitions.
4. Run fdisk.exe to create a 20 GByte primary + active partition.
5. Run smartdrv.exe.
6. Run d:\i386\winnt.exe to install WinXP.
7. Convert the primary partition to NTFS if desired.

Note that this method will destroy all data on your disk.
There are some methods (not explained here) that allow you
to keep the data stored on drives other than C:. Note also
that EMail files are usually kept on drive C:. They will be
lost unless you back them up first (and test the backed up files!).

Post again if you require more details.

 

[RalfG]

When you enabled booting from CDrom did you also change the boot priority
order so that the CD drive is checked for an OS before harddrive? Take note
of the onscreen messages during the initial boot sequence in case you need
to press any keys to get CD access. HP often disables Diagnostic boot
messages by default in the BIOS in favour of an HP logo splash screen, but
you can re-enable the diagnostic messages.

CD drives require drivers to be loaded before they can be recognized under
DOS. Pegasus described booting with a Win98 diskette to get CD access but if
you have HP recovery discs the file extraction method described possibly
won't apply.