New XP on a New HDD not willing to install 1

[Calinus]

On a new "untouched" HDD as on a completly reformatted HDD, I get the same message preventing me to go further with installation of XP :

Error:
Installation Failed: D:\I386\asms. Error message: The parameter is incorrect

***
Fatal Error:
One of the components that Windows needs to continue setup could not be installed.
The parameter is incorrect.

This is already in GUI, mouse active, and saying: "...there are still 39 minutes to complete installation"
What parameter, what component ?
I have only the motherboard, the ATI video card (Radeon 7000 64 Mb) one WD 40Gb/ATA133 HDD as IDE1/CableSelect one DVD-ROM (the boot one) as IDE2 Master and a DVD+RW as IDE2 as Slave, 512 Mb RAM and a FD. Somebody said I should take out a bank of memory.. It doesn't sound as a tip..
...and motherboard is Gigabyte's GA-7DXR+ with AMD Athlon XP 1900+. I didn't manage to flush an updated BIOS,'cause I didn't really find where from and as I see a BIOS is about 30$ which is more then 30% of the initial value of the board... and probably the actual value of it...
So ?

 

[six3077]

I know this isn't going to help at all, but I just had the same problem with the same file. Something about xp wanting me to please insert windowsxp sp1 that contains the folder 'ASMS'. The sad part was that I already had a copy of xp with sp1 and when I checked for that folder on the cd on another computer it was on the cd.
I tried copying that folder onto a floppy but that didn't work.
The funny thing is.....I got my copy to install on the 5th frustrating attempt. All I did was load the bios defaults, added my 3rd party driver on the o/s initial setup and for some reason it worked. Not sure if you've tried a few times, but that is the only thing I can suggest.
Maybe try another cd copy of xp?

 

[1stITMAN]

Ok it could be a problem with the cd-rom copying over the info to the hard drive. I suggest installing xp this way.

http://www.bootstrike.com/WinXP/dosinstalling.html

boot from a win98 boot disk with SMARTDRV on it.

Installing Windows XP

Last chance to delete any unnecessary files! (don't bother about this step if you skipped Step 2 and 3)
If you've not done Step 2.8 where it involves loading SmartDrive, load it by:
C: (Changes to your C Drive, replace substitute C with the drive where it contains the SmartDrive utility if your drive is different)
CD\ (Changes to your root folder, append the folder name if you copied it into some other folder, an example would be CD\UTILITIES, which means you stored Smartdrive in the Utilities folder)
CHECK: The prompt should now look like this: C:\>
SMARTDRV (Loads SmartDrive to memory installing Windows XP. On successfully loading, it will just display a blank line. You can type SMARTDRV again and it should show you the status.)
Assuming you're installing from the CD-ROM, enter the following commands in BLUE, after each line, hit Enter.
E: (Changes to your CD-ROM Drive, substitute E for the drive if it is something else)
CD\I386 (Changes to your Windows XP Setup folder)
CHECK: The prompt should now look like this: E:\I386>
WINNT (Starts the DOS Installation program.)
At this point, Windows XP Setup may complain if you don't have SmartDrive loaded. The CD files will be copied to your hard disk and your computer restarted to the main setup program. Follow instructions and you're on your way to getting the Windows eXPerience. Happy installing!
After the XP installation is completed, play around with the new environment. You have to reinstall the programs back and move the backed up files back. Try to get updated versions of the program from the developer's site.


I.T Systems Support Engineer
Bsc. (Hons).

 

[Calinus]

This is a Reply to MY question !!
After several attempts trying different techniques (there is no space to detail here) finally the only thing that (for the time being 'cause I'm actually installing XP now)passed me over that Error was rewriting MBR and Boot Sector from Console Recovery !!! Note Bene ! - before I even wrote Zeros on the disk for more then 3 hours. You really have to be a Guru/Professional to do these nowaday things. It looks now that installing a Unix on a station or a server becomes easear than trying this with SuperUserFriendly Windows. I'm telling you folks, in 'coupple of years no OS would be able to be properly installed by an average... user. Thousands of drivers, standards, platforms... And as I see in forums not one professional exact answer !!!

 

[1stITMAN]

well that was a solution were u can actually copy the i386 folder to the hard disk for setup


I.T Systems Support Engineer
Bsc. (Hons).

 

[wolluf]

Calinus - hope all goes well, but I wouldn't be surprised if you do get XP installed ok, you find you have problems. With sound hardware and a sound install disk, there should be no problems of the type you describe. I'd suspect you have either a hardware problem - or a compatibility issue (between 2 or more pieces of your hardware and/or XP).

 

[dholt]

The fault lies within your hardware not Microsoft. At 39 minutes XP is detecting what you have. Copying the i386 to the HDD or any other workaround only delays the inevitable problem that you will have with this PC. The problem is mostly likely with either with a faulty integrated Promise RAID controller or integrated sound. You can try disabling them.

By the way, people in forums like these are trying to help you. Don't blame others for your frustation.

 

[Calinus]

Dholt, I don't blame members of the Forum who tried to help. On the contrary, I thank everybody, and personally I really appreciate this type of forum. It looks very professional. Thing is, that I am used to have a very determined link between CAUSE and EFFECT (I use to work as a research assistant in a Nuclear Physics Institute), and I spent thousands of hours to determine "Which Cause" determines "What Phenomenon" with the highest probability. That probably induces my frustrations and not the people who try to help. At this point everything works great, and YES after system was entirely installed, and within it, I flashed the BIOS with the more recent release, I updated Windows, I setup correct drivers for RAID...
What really happened and what was the cause... ? I still don't know. By the way doing the above mentioned moves I managed to see the whol 160 Gb of a nem bought WD HDD, which is a bargain because half of the price of 180$ comes back with rebate (see at BestBuy)...
A QUESTION !! :
there is no system on the disk, only formatted and it.."shrinked" with 10 Gb !! (from Windows, free space is reported 150 Gb, but the BIOS reported the whole 160 before partitioning). I figure the space is reserved for some recovery info features, but this is about 6% of the capacity. And when I think people still use computers with HDD less then 10 Gb, And last thing. I used for the first time DiskPart and I really enjoyed it. It feels NT Line Command or Unix or who remembers RSX-11 on old PDP-11...
Thank You Everybody !

 

[wolluf]

160GB is based manufacturer's gigabyte (1,000,000,000 bytes)
150GB is based on window's gigabyte (1,073,741,824 - 1024 cubed - bytes) - so they're actually the same!

 

[Calinus]

WOLLUF.
are U sure ?
Why then BIOS reports 160 Gb ?
In other words BIOS counts decimal (as the manufacterer) but Windows, not to uppset Mr. Gates who used to programm machines using "ones" and "zeroes" sticks to the binary system !!
Yes, indeed Windows reprts 150 Gbytes (159.000 Kbytes)...
but then 1Kb is 1000 bytes or....1024 ?
1Mb is 1000 Kb or 1024 Kb or...1048576 bytes ?
and so on...
In other words :
2 exp 30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes = 1Gb
if you multiply this number with 150 (150 Gb !!) you obtain aprox 161,061,270,000 which is aprox. 160 exp 9 in decimal system which would give us aprox 160 Gb...decimal
This is what you meant ?
Do you know exactly where binary becomes decimal ?

 

[wolluf]

Just as I said - drive manufacturer's use a 'decimal' gigabyte, windows uses a 'binary' one. Your drive is 160,000,000,000 bytes.

There are other 'intermediary' definitions (1000*1000*1024 & 1000*1024*1024) of gigabyte I've come across - so you can get a range of sizes for the same drive/partition!

A kilobyte is generally 1024 bytes (not 1000).

 

[garebo]

To Calinus

Because you said this: "new "untouched" HDD as on a completly reformatted HDD,"

and this: Error was rewriting MBR and Boot Sector from Console Recovery !!!

And, you mentioned cause and effect. I am not as knowledgeable as the people who have already posted here but, in my experience, a combination of motherboard,bios, and hard drive sometimes causes win xp to want to format the hard drive itself and when you format the hard drive yourself you can have probs, and i think this is what happened. By letting xp install rewrite MBR and Boot sector, it was happy with the "format" of the hard drive and that was the prob, which has happened to me too. Whenever most win xp install probs come up, i simply start over, let xp format the drive and all goes well.
Provided, of course, the built-in issues mentioned above are dealt with or can be dealt with.

 

[Freestone]

Since you mention 160GB hard drive, I've been informed that the following fix does not get pushed through the Windows Update service:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;331958

 

[dholt]

Calinus, I'm glad you got it working. I've been through these scenarios enough times to say process of elimation works the best. It helps when you have the experience to know what is the most/least likely. I've been stuck at 39 minutes 4 times out of over 1000 XP installs on PC's I've built. 2 modem, 1 sound card, 1 scsi card.

Wolluf is 100% correct