XP install (doing my head in)

mordeith

Hoping someone can help me here. I'm doing an XP reinstall on a Dell laptop with the XP disc supplied by Dell. All the partitioning and formating bit goes well, but on the restart where it should complete the installation it stalls on 39imns and says it can't access the i836 folder on the drive. I've googled this and tried solutions like using another disc but still nothing. I have also copied the XP files to USB key which was another solution but when I put the USB key as the first boot device it fails to detect it (even though it's there in the BIOS). Any help/suggestions appreciated.

yoyo

mordeith wrote: »

Hoping someone can help me here. I'm doing an XP reinstall on a Dell laptop with the XP disc supplied by Dell. All the partitioning and formating bit goes well, but on the restart where it should complete the installation it stalls on 39imns and says it can't access the i836 folder on the drive. I've googled this and tried solutions like using another disc but still nothing. I have also copied the XP files to USB key which was another solution but when I put the USB key as the first boot device it fails to detect it (even though it's there in the BIOS). Any help/suggestions appreciated.

Try ignore if you have the option or cancel and see if the install progresses. Vaguely remember this working for me in the past. Sounds like the internal CD drive in the machine is dodgy. Not all laptops support USB booting unfortunately..
If you know someone with an external CD/DVD drive that is possibly another option, or installing XP to the hard disk outside of the laptop and after the final restart shut down and complete the install procedure on the laptop itself (so the enviornment configures itself correctly)

Nick

mordeith

yoyo wrote: »

Try ignore if you have the option or cancel and see if the install progresses. Vaguely remember this working for me in the past. Sounds like the internal CD drive in the machine is dodgy. Not all laptops support USB booting unfortunately..
If you know someone with an external CD/DVD drive that is possibly another option, or installing XP to the hard disk outside of the laptop and after the final restart shut down and complete the install procedure on the laptop itself (so the enviornment configures itself correctly)

I'll try the cancel/ignore options and see. There is an external CD drive somewhere here in work so I'll try that as well.
I read somewhere that if I format the USB to FAT16 it might be picked up.

gctest50

I had that problem an ancient laptop - it would get halfway through installing away fine from the cd then reboot and loose contact with the cd-drive.

In the end I made a small partition at the end of the drive, copied the install files there and installed from there.

http://www.ubcd4win.com/ or similar might do it

Torqay

Copy the disk at the lowest speed possible.

P.S.: Copying the files to a USB stick doesn't make it bootable.

mordeith

Torqay wrote: »

Copy the disk at the lowest speed possible.

P.S.: Copying the files to a USB stick doesn't make it bootable.

Is that true if it's just the install files I copied as opposed to trying to have it boot into an operational OS from USB (which I'm not trying to do).

yoyo

mordeith wrote: »

Is that true if it's just the install files I copied as opposed to trying to have it boot into an operational OS from USB (which I'm not trying to do).

Your USB Key needs to be formatted and have boot code placed in it for the machine to detect it as a bootable device. This should do this, just format the key beforehand

Nick

Zascar

I had a similar problem, download an xp iso, use the windows took to make a usb bootable device, this works every time for me when cd's don't.
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

mordeith

I decided to give it one more try and for some reason this time it's working (using the copied CD). Go figure :rolleyes:

Thanks for all the help and suggestions guys

mordeith

Well looks like an other problem. XP setup went grand. I created a username with no password. The login screen has two options 1) The user I created and 2) Guest. However it's looking for a password for each one even though I didn't setup any passwords! I've tried 0000, 1234 and leaving it blank but no joy.
I also tried booting to Safe Mode and using the administrator login but the same deal. I get the following error.
The system cannot log you on due to the following error:
The specified domain does not exist or could not be contacted

Torqay

Something went wrong during the installation, do it again.

But first you should test the HDD and RAM (UBCD has all you need) and then create a new installation disk (burn slow!).

mordeith

Torqay wrote: »

Something went wrong during the installation, do it again.

But first you should test the HDD and RAM (UBCD has all you need) and then create a new installation disk (burn slow!).

Feck.
Right well I'll try another install and if the same problem persists then I'll use the Ultimate Boot to check the RAM and HD

mordeith

Torqay wrote: »

Something went wrong during the installation, do it again.

Worked a charm the second time round