Windows XP Home Install on Formatted Hard Disk

[Guest]

I am having a problem getting windows XP Home to install on a formatted hard
disk. I keep getting the error that:

Setup can not copy the file: suchandsuch.xxx

It will give me this message on multiple files. If I retry some of the files
multiple times some of them will copy and some will not. The hard drive is
FAT32 (I did also try NTFS). I have run scandisk on the drive with no errors.
I have also checked the drive on the Windows Catalog and it is XP approved. I
have tried using the CD in the CD-RW drive and the DVD drive with the same
results. I have contacted Newegg.com as I assumed I had a defective cd. They
informed me that Microsoft would have to say that is the problem before they
will send me another disk. I tried to access Microsoft Email and Chat but am
unable to do so without my PID which I can not get unless I use commands only
available through Windows and since Windows doesn't install I don't believe I
can get my PID. If anyone knows another way to get this number please let me
know.

This machine previously had ME installed on it. I formatted the drive to
install XP Home. It was working fine under ME so I believe it is not a
hardware issue, I could be wrong. I can no longer find my ME disk and would
prefer to have the XP OS anyway.

I am unsure what to try next or how to get support without paying an
additional $32 on top of purchasing the software for $90 +/-. So, at this
point any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

If you are installing a fresh install of XP, the hard drive does not have to
be formated before. You just need to boot the PC with the CD-ROM drive as
primary boot device and the XP install CD in the drive.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

If you are installing a fresh install of XP, the hard drive
does not
have to be formated before. You just need to boot the PC with
the
CD-ROM drive as primary boot device and the XP install CD in
the
drive.

True, but irrelevant. He's having trouble reading the CD. It's
very likely that the CD is defective, as he surmises.

 

[DanS]

I am having a problem getting windows XP Home to install on a
formatted hard disk. I keep getting the error that:

Setup can not copy the file: suchandsuch.xxx

It will give me this message on multiple files. If I retry some of the
files multiple times some of them will copy and some will not. The
hard drive is FAT32 (I did also try NTFS). I have run scandisk on the
drive with no errors. I have also checked the drive on the Windows
Catalog and it is XP approved. I have tried using the CD in the CD-RW
drive and the DVD drive with the same results. I have contacted
Newegg.com as I assumed I had a defective cd. They informed me that
Microsoft would have to say that is the problem before they will send
me another disk. I tried to access Microsoft Email and Chat but am
unable to do so without my PID which I can not get unless I use
commands only available through Windows and since Windows doesn't
install I don't believe I can get my PID. If anyone knows another way
to get this number please let me know.

This machine previously had ME installed on it. I formatted the drive
to install XP Home. It was working fine under ME so I believe it is
not a hardware issue, I could be wrong. I can no longer find my ME
disk and would prefer to have the XP OS anyway.

I am unsure what to try next or how to get support without paying an
additional $32 on top of purchasing the software for $90 +/-. So, at
this point any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I had a similar problem installing Server 2003 on an old machine. The
setup would die not being able to find a file on the CD. I started the
install 5 or 6 times and each time it was a different file. One file was
explorer.exe it couldn't copy. On the next install attempt, it blew right
thru tha and then failed on another file.

Turns out that this PC had a bad stick of RAM. I removed one of them and
it installed smoothly on the next attempt.

There's a decent freeware program that tests RAM called memtest86,
http://www.memtest86.com .

If you've got a couple sticks over 128 meg each you can try removing one
or the other and try installing again.

 

[Guest]

Thank you all for the advice. I have tried another stick of 512MB Ram and no
luck. If you have any other ideas please let me know. Thanks.

Matt