Repeated restarting during XP Pro installation

[Eric Baber]

Hi,

I'm trying to install Windows XP using boot floppies and a CD-ROM I've used
sucessfully before.

After going through the floppies the setup procedure starts correctly. I
format the C drive (130 Gb) then continue the setup procedure; the next step
is that it copies all the setup files into the Windows directory on the C
drive. It then tells me to remove any floppies and that it's about to
restart. It does - continually. It tries to read the CD-ROM (which is still
in the drive) as well as trying to read the hard drive. I'm not sure which
one it should be trying to access at this stage, but both should be
available, and it doesn't move on from there. I've gone through the whole
cycle insert floppies - reformat C drive - copy files over and restart twice
now with the same result. Any pointers? Is the hard-drive/partition too big?
I'm formatting it with NTFS.

Thanks for any pointers,

Eric

 

[Guest]

Pitch the floppy disks,they have no value to installing xp...Simply install
xp cd,
boot to xp cd(set for this in the BIOS if needed,also set in BIOS,cdrom with
xp as 1st boot device),once at xp cd boot menu,select install xp,new copy.

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

Pitch the floppy disks,they have no value to installing xp...Simply
install xp cd,
boot to xp cd(set for this in the BIOS if needed,also set in
BIOS,cdrom with xp as 1st boot device),once at xp cd boot menu,select
install xp,new copy.

You only need the floppies if your motherboard does not support booting from
CD and if that is the case, you seriously need to upgrade your motherboard.
The only other reason would be if you didn't have a bootable copy of XP, and
then you are getting into a gray area of licensing violations and activation
issues.
If you don't have a CD drive and need to install from a flat, use a Win98/Me
boot disk with smartdrv.exe added to the floppy.
All options are covered in detailed step by step from the link below.
How to clean install XP.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
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