reinstall XP Home not working, path \i386 not recognized

[Ron]

Hi,

Trying a clean REinstall Windows XP Home after wiping out
my 30GB hard drive. Used Fdisk to ensure old partitions
removed (now have just the primary DOS partition) and
used a Win98 boot disk to get the system running. I was
also careful to change the boot order in the BIOS and
have verified that the CD/DVD drives (E and F) are in
working order.

I booted up with CD support. I was unable to run setup
directly from the CD (the error said that it cannot run
in DOS). So I found this procedure to enter e:\i386
\winnt.exe from the A-prompt. In the Windows XP (blue)
setup screen, I'm asked to enter the path, so I entered
e:\i386, but I'm told that the source specified is not
valid, not accessible, or does not contain a valid Win XP
Setup Installation. Enter new path... I've tried
everything I konw to get past this point. The drives
check out fine. I'm able to read and list any directory
on the CD, but I can't get it to run.
Any advice?

 

[purplehaz]

You need to use a xp boot disk or boot to the cd directly(it is bootable).
Get an xp boot disk here: www.bootdisk.com

 

[GwD]

Don't boot up with CD support. Just Boot From The CD.

Take your floppy out and boot from the CD!

 

[Guest]

Hi, thanks so much. Here's an update.

Just learned that my wife has tried that several times.
Each time, setup formats the partition fine, and during
setup, gets to about 75% to 90% and then bombs out. She
says different things happen each time. Sometimes,
various dll, sys, exe, etc. files won't copy (she has 5
sticky notes for 5 different trys, each with different
files that wouldn't copy). When each of those files
ignored, we eventually receive some kind of fatal error.
Some examples of these: 1. Setup could not register the
OLE control C:\Win\sys32\netman.dll because of the
following error: Load library returned error 126 (the
specific module could not be found)
2. Same as prev axcept filename is netshell.dll
3. Fatal error: Setup was unable to initialize network
installation components. The specific error code is Z.

Well, I took your advice anyway and trying this again.
I'm currently at 50% format prior to install. We'll see
what fatal errors I receive this time.
Any new thoughts?

 

[Guest]

Not going well. All files copied, install completed, and
now Windows won't start. I'm cycling through restarts and
can't start Windows in any mode. Getting a flash of
the "blue screen...memory dump..." before the restart.
Stuck again.
Thoughts? Thanks.

 

[GwD]

We need more info:

Type of mother board
How much memory installed
How big is your disk drive

 

[Malke]

Not going well. All files copied, install completed, and
now Windows won't start. I'm cycling through restarts and
can't start Windows in any mode. Getting a flash of
the "blue screen...memory dump..." before the restart.
Stuck again.
Thoughts? Thanks.

Usually when MS operating system fail to install, the reason is faulty
hardware. If you are already doing a clean install (where you have
formatted the drive first) and the installation is failing, you
probably have bad hardware. Start with a RAM test - I like Memtest86
from www.memtest86.com - and let the test run for an extended time,
like overnight (unless you get errors immediately). If the RAM is good,
then run a hard drive diagnostic utility, which you can get from the
drive mftr.'s website.

Good luck,

Malke