Windows XP installation woes (help!)

shrewmdust

shrewmdust

CAGiversary!
Does anyone have an explanation as to why the Windows XP installation would be having such a hard time working? Here's what's happend:

I was stupid and I turned off windows update (because I don't like to be interrupted when I'm playing cs:s) and then a worm came along and destroyed my windows, making it unbootable in even safe mode. I didn't have any bootable floppies so a friend let me use a copy of simplyMepis linux. I used the format/partition software built in and wiped the whole hd clean and made it ntfs. Now, when I try to reinstall windows, it gives me all kinds of errors copying random files onto the hd. The files are different every time so I have no idea what to make of it. I've also used a friend's copy as a test and it does the same thing. Then I tried formatting the hd to fat32 and it does the same thing. Is my hard drive just completely f'd?
 
Thats what it sounds like. I had the same problem on a laptop and a desktop. On the laptop it turned out that the cdrom drive was broke and couldn't read some stuff. On the desktop the hard drive was fubar'd. Windows install should have fdisk. Use fdisk at a command line and scan your hard drive and reformat it one last time before chunking the hard drive. If your hard drive comes up clean maybe its your cdrom like the notebook problem i had.
 
Yeah, definitely try a deep clean. The only other thing I could think of is trying out some of the utilities on Ultimate Boot CD . It has helped me save quite a few people's jacked up HDD's. Good luck there.
 
The question is why you didn't just boot from the CD? If your BIOS is set up correctly it should just work. Check you setup to be sure the CD-ROM drive appears in the boot list before the hard drive and floppy drive. Have Windows do a full format of the hard drive and then proceed. If there continues to be problems then the CD drive may have gone bad or you disc is trashed.

If nothing appears to be wrong with the drives, try using a CD bootable Linux like Knoppix (far friendlier environment than a floppy based version) that will format the drive and then copy over the entire XP disc to a directory on the drive. Launch the XP install from the drive and see if it behves any differently.

If it succeeds you want to get rid of the directory to which you copied the XP disc content to recover space. This used to be a preferable way to install Windows because hard drive were so much smaller that not everybody wanted all of the optional items and drivers on their hard drive. But it was a pain in the ass whenever you needed to change hardware config and Windows want ed to get a file off the install disc. With Windows 2000 it became standard for the install to include everything.

For future reference, there is no good reason to turn off Windows Update. The time when it checks for updates is user settable, so just make it for a day and time when the machine can be left on but not in use. Unless you're on dial-up this shouldn't be a problem. Or you can set a firm day of the week when you go to the Update site to check for new items but the self-discipline required is why automatic Updates have been such a long needed function.
 
[quote name='epobirs']The question is why you didn't just boot from the CD? If your BIOS is set up correctly it should just work. Check you setup to be sure the CD-ROM drive appears in the boot list before the hard drive and floppy drive. Have Windows do a full format of the hard drive and then proceed. If there continues to be problems then the CD drive may have gone bad or you disc is trashed.[/QUOTE]

I tried to boot from the cd several times. I have two cdrom drives and isn't feasible that they both crapped out at the same time. I also replaced the ribbon cable, checked connections, etc.

If nothing appears to be wrong with the drives, try using a CD bootable Linux like Knoppix (far friendlier environment than a floppy based version) that will format the drive and then copy over the entire XP disc to a directory on the drive. Launch the XP install from the drive and see if it behves any differently.
Click to expand...

If it succeeds you want to get rid of the directory to which you copied the XP disc content to recover space. This used to be a preferable way to install Windows because hard drive were so much smaller that not everybody wanted all of the optional items and drivers on their hard drive. But it was a pain in the ass whenever you needed to change hardware config and Windows want ed to get a file off the install disc. With Windows 2000 it became standard for the install to include everything. [/QUOTE]

I do have a cd of simplymepis linux that boots. I've used it for formatting the hard drive... that's about it because I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to linux. I'll try to do this when I get off work though.

For future reference, there is no good reason to turn off Windows Update. The time when it checks for updates is user settable, so just make it for a day and time when the machine can be left on but not in use. Unless you're on dial-up this shouldn't be a problem. Or you can set a firm day of the week when you go to the Update site to check for new items but the self-discipline required is why automatic Updates have been such a long needed function.
Click to expand...

No doubt that was my fault. I did have mcafee running all the time so I thought it wouldn't matter.

One more thing. Since I last posted I've run memtest (i think that's what it's called) and it came up with 90,000+ errors. I really think the problem could be my ram. It was 1gb valuram that I never intended to keep for that long, I just had to cut a corner because I didn't have as much money as I thought. My processor (athlon64 3700) obviously outclassed it and I wonder if the games I was running (Oblivion, BF2, CS:S) could have mauled it. The symptoms my computer had (randomly restarting, programs not loading right and eventually windows not loading) could have been attributed to damaged ram.

Now with the windows install not working, I wonder if that's the case. Anyone know what failing ram could do to a computer?
 
[quote name='shrewmdust']

Now with the windows install not working, I wonder if that's the case. Anyone know what failing ram could do to a computer?[/QUOTE]

It is entirely possible. Some types of RAM failures can cause very random failures since it won't considtently be the same memory locations. Check you BIOS for settings that perform an extended POST. This is often turned off these days to improve boot times.
 
One more thing that I think is important. Sometimes, when trying to install windows xp, I would hit enter to retry copying the given file that messed up. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes not. However, once in a while it would give me a blue screen saying something like PFN_LIST_CORRUPT. I'm not sure if that's related to ram but I think I might as well go ahead and order some.
 
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