XP Install Failing

[Rello]

Having trouble with my AMD 1.7 256Mb ram asus rock mb. Trying to load windows xp and I keep getting files loading incorrectly. Random files on every attempt. Tried formating my hd for clean install. Tried another ide drive, tried a friend's xp install cd disk. Same result every time. Stripped down to hd and cd-rom only. Same result.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

[hidden75]

Hmm.. Bad memory or CPU. Maybe CPU getting HOT. All of these can cause these issues you describe. Maybe you can explain the problem better. During install you get an error saying what?

 

[Rello]

When it copies files from cd to hd I get message saying "setup cannot copy the file: xxxx.xxx" Random files on every attempted load. I have tried different cd-rom drives as well.

 

[hidden75]

Does it give you an option to Retry, Ignore, Skip or something? Also. Is this an actual XP PRO CD or a copy? What happens if you hit Retry or Ignore? I had a problem during an in place upgrade where it had a problem reading a file and I hit retry and it continued without any other problems.

 

[linney]

310064 - HOW TO: Troubleshoot Windows XP Problems During Installation When You Upgrade from Windows 98 or Windows Me

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310064&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

See - "You Receive a File Copy Error During Setup", there are several suggestions in this paragraph.

Free RAM checks.

http://www.memtest86.com/

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Your hard drive manufacturer will have free diagnostic software to thoroughly check the condition of the hard drive.

 

[Frank4d]

From the Microsoft article above:

Ultra direct memory access (DMA) is turned on in your computer's CMOS settings, and the data is moving too quickly.
• Change from DMA mode to Processor Input/Output (PIO) mode to lower your data transfer rate. If this does not resolve the problem, lower your PIO mode settings. The higher your PIO mode settings are, the faster your data transfer is.

Many times setting the CDROM drive to PIO mode resolves this issue. PIO mode is slower and does not test for CRC errors which errors are usually the cause this type of failed XP installations. Be sure to turn DMA mode back on when you are done.

 

[Rick998]

During a recent upgrade I had the same symptoms and tried the same solutions... nothing worked, including the advice in KB310064 mentioned above.

In the end it turned out that, although recognised correctly by the BIOS, the hard disk was either just too big for the age of the motherboard or Acronis Disk Manager didn't do a very good job with the Master Boot Record or quick formatting.

The problem went away (more by luck than judgement) when I started from scratch and used FDISK and FORMAT to partition the HD into 2 separate, equal sized partitions.

After installing XP I used Acronis Disk Manager to re-size the partitions how I wanted.

Hope this helps...

 

[Rello]

Thanks

It was indeed a bad stick of memory. Very erratic behaviour