OT- HELP! Completely screwed up Windows Instalation!

[Ben B]

I've mnaged to make a right mess, and can't see what to do now! Maybe somebody can help? ( Bold below for those who dont want to read m life story! lol (QUICK!)

Basically, ever since my last PC was new about a year ago, it's been prone to blue-screening about every two weeks, with memory errors. It was sent back twice, but being one of those occasional errors they could never trace it, despite replacing the memory, CPU and motherboard (somehow I dont beleive they did all this!!) Anyway, it worked well ebough, and i reseigned myself to the fact it would occasionally crash, as I couldn't lose any more working time to repairs/reinstalation any more!

Anyway, I've recently decided to upgrade, and rather than buy a new system, thought I'd just buy a new motherboard, CPU & memory and switch the drives & cards over and put the whole thing into my exsisting case. So I've done that, it's an AMD Athlon x2 64 3800. I've installed it, managed to find the correct places to plug in the front audio, et c etc all the little fiddly plugs, obvioulsy all the main drives & plugs aren't exactly rocket science!

Rather than use the 'suspect' copy of Windows I used in the past, I thought I'd use a 'proper' version I got from some guy off some forum for £40 (that came with a holographic sticker)

So I put the Official Windows disk in, and start the instalation, starting with formatting my drive. That all goes fine,
Then when it comes to instalation, I get an error message saying one of the files could not be copied and the Windows disk may not be usable.
So I have to cancel instalation, and now whenever I try to install it from another Windows disk it just sits there and wont move. I guess it's getting confused as there's part of an instalation already on there?

So I dont know what to do next?

Maybe if I can make a DOS boot disk (How can I do that on CD?) I can reformat again, so Windows doesn't notice I already started an instalation?

 

[KeithR]

Is it not feasable to put the screwed up hard drive into another pc, format it, then put it back in t e first pc and try again? Apart from that theres a program called ghost8 which fits on a floppy disk, and can format the hard drive for you, if you have another machine you could try that?

KeithR

 

[Chris]

I would try formatting it again if you can get into dos?

Do you know that the file is that wouldn't copy over?

Chris

 

[Ben B]

Something starting with cine***.sys

I've just tried again back with the original Windows disk that crashed out, and I got another Blue-screen saying serial.sys caused an error PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
I guess I can forget this for the moment, as it's obviously some remnant from the half-installed Windows?

 

[KeithR]

Not sure on the individual files TBH but im sure you will need to somehow format the hard drive before you can try again, im looking now to see if theres a way to go straight into DOS, can you access the BIOS settings?

KeithR

 

[Chris]

If you're getting the blue screen of doom (memory dump) that's a hardware fault. More than likely to either be an incorrect jumper setting on the motherboard or faulty memory stick. Could also try loading the default settings on the bios.

As mentioned, can you get into dos mode to format it?

Chris

 

[Ben B]

I can get to BIOS, but there's no DOS option.
I just tried making a Boot disk in Nero but that wont seem to work. Just sits there.

I think I'm gonna have to plug it into another machine to format it!

GRRRRR! Just hope I havent screwed up the new kit in any way? Sure I havent, I wore an antistatic wristband and everything!! Just getting paranoid!

 

[Anonymous]

go to the bios set floppy as primary boot up

insert a windows 98 boot disk

type fdisk

delete the partition... then make a new one... then when it restarts u need to type format c:/ (something liek that) some one will correct it in amin no doubt)

once u have formatted insert the cd and then run setup...

if it fails again do it all exactly the same up untill insert the cd and use the winxp boot up floppys (theres 6 of them)

try that...

if that fails then the only way i know round it is install 98 and then upgrade from 98 to xp...

a critical memory failure is common on xp especially when ur using it for what u r. high graphics and memory use. there is a script that u can write (sure ian will tell u this in a min as i cant remember it) that will incraease the casche memory and the dump file size

theres also a few others u can use for internet to speed things up aswell

Smee

 

[Ben B]

Floppy drive? lol
My dead PC's got one, but the others in the office I dont think even have!

Oh well, I've just installed it into another PC anyway, so I'll format it in there any try again.

What may not help is the Windows disk & Serial I paid the guy for is actually HP branded. If I remember correctly that means it actually only installs on an HP. (I think I found that) Maybe that's what's gone wrong

 

[Barakka]

Firstly, you are right, if it is an OEM copy of Windows for HP then it will only install on a PC with a HP BIOS.

Secondly, are you sure the memory you have is compatible with the motherboard - namely the speed of the memory.

 

[Ben B]

should be exactly the correct memory- DDR2 533mhz matched pair of 1GBs,

I've checked, and it's definately catible. It supports dual channel DDRII 800/667/553/400

 

[Ben B]

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHH!

Freshly formatted drive, start again (with the non-hp copy of Windows) and I get the error-
"The file advapi32.dll was not copied correctly. The file Setup placed placed on your hard drive is not a valid Windows XP system image..."

WTF? How comes this is happenning? it worked for me in the past (It's the same CD the PC had on it before)

OK, I retried and that one worked, a few more come up, some let me retry, now I've got to another file 'shell32.dll' and I get the message 'Setup cannot copy the file'

 

[Ben B]

Another Blue screen 'MEMORY MANAGEMENT' crashed now.

Getting really annoyed!

 

[Ian]

lol.

Try another Disk

 

[Ben B]

Yeah, I'm thinking that, but the only old disks I can find lying about are about 3GB ancient ones!

 

[Ian]

No, I mean, Windows CD. Not Hard Disk.

 

[Ben B]

Tried 3 different ones!
Trying new HD anyway (easier then reformatting in another machine again,only to have acheived nothing!

 

[Ben B]

That's reallnnoyed me.

Fresh HD, never been installed (it's a SATA one this time)

Doesn't even get to the formatting partition bit, and it already bluescreens.

"PFN_LIST_CORRUPT"
Maybe it cant find the HD now?


Any ideas what else I can change. I'm starting to think it's far more technical than just 'try another CD' this time!!

 

[Chris]

If it's blue screening all the time, double check the ram is ok and properly plugged in, perhaps wipe the connections?

Load up default bios settings.

If it's still blue screening, the only other thing I can think it could be is that the jumper settings are wrong on the motherboard.

Chris

 

[Ian]

CAUSE
This behavior occurs because a driver or other problem damaged the input/output (I/O) driver structures.


Try a different IDE cable on the CD-rom drive