Printable View
Hey guys! I've just got a new computer and I'm trying to install Windows Xp. I format the drive and setup copies the files. It then restarts(thats normal) and when it boots up its supposed to enter windows Xp. But it only loads the setup again! And when I boot from HD, it says invalid system disk. I can't get Xp! By the way, I have a 2.66Ghz P4 and a P4S800 Mb and 512 mb of RAM and 80Gb hard drive.
OMFG. Seriously... some people just aren't meant to work on this stuff. The setup will reload and continue... the whole process takes about 45 minutes or more. It will not boot to windows until the entire process has finished.
Start it up and go watch a movie or something.
I let it continue and ended up installing Xp again, and again. While I'm doing that it says that its not wise to install more than 1 Os's on one partition. Setup does NOT continue.
1. Create an unattended installation disk, lots of information on the web.
2. Wipe your drive.
3. Insert CD.
4. Go watch a movie as ober suggested and don't touch it until morning!
Where's captain obvious when you need him
After you have inserted your XP cd, configure the partitions or whatever else you want to do. When this is done winXP will copy the files needed and reboot your PC so far so good. When your PC restarts, dont hit any keys, if you do so it will take you again on the first step, im pretty sure this is what is happening to you. Then you will see the XP loading logo and from here the installation is easy.
yeah you're probably hitting the key when it wants to press any key to boot from cd...
When I don't press anything, the system reboots, and the second time, it just clears the screen and all I can see is a blinking cursor in the top left corner. So I wait for half an hour and nothing happens. Ctrl + alt + del doesn't work there either. I've tried to install with 2 hard drives now. One NTFS and one FAT32.
You are not doing the installation correctly, thats all i can say. The install is very easy and straight forward. But anyway you can go here for more details http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316941
I guess no one can help then.
Format both hard drives to have the same file system, NTFS is good. Then partion one of them and give it some space for the boot sector, select the other to install XP, let it finish, when its done, dont remove the XP cd, dont hit any keys, and your done.
when you see the blinking cursor, just let it go. I once did an install of XP Pro and the graphical update did not show anything. I just let it sit there for about an hour and finally it showed me something.
Let it start and WALK AWAY.
alright, I'm letting it go, I just started it now at(the time this was posted).
Quote:
Originally Posted by ay_okay
At least you get it.
Thanks for trying and for poking fun. I found out how to do it. I have a western digital HDD, and I heard rumors that it doesn't like being on the same IDE tape as another drive. So I put my CD_ROM drive on the other tape(secondary as master) and it worked. I also deleted the partitions on the drive in setup(before copying files) and instead of quiting I pulled the plug. Then I started it up and everything went fine. In case anyone else has this problem!
Yeah sharing HDDs with CD-ROMs on the same cable is very bad. They will conflict with each other at worst and at best they will share the channel which will seriously degrade the performance of the CD-ROM and/or hard drive.
HDDs on one cable.
CD-ROMs on another.
Period.
why would you even think of putting the HDD and CD-ROM on the same cable anyway?
Theres a reason why theres an IDE1 and IDE2 on your mobo.
-psychopath
I've never had a problem mixing them when i had too, but i dont because of the difference in speed. The only issue i ever had was the low reliability oif an older cd burner when on the same line as the HDD writing to it. I only set that pc up that way because the IDE2 slot was burned up.
I agree with bubba tho, issues or not you never mix them when theres an alternative.