[biggz]

Hey guys,

I'm hoping someone here can help me with this problem. I tried to format my Dell PC. Well... I started to do this, and messed up somewhere along the line. So then, I figured, well, let's just install XP on top of whatever is there... and let's go from there. Only problem: I've deleted the O/S.

Now, I've tried installing XP over and over again, but to no avail. I don't even get as far as the system config screen. I figure if I change the boot order to CD, instead of floppy, then I might be able to install directly, but I can't change the order, because I can't reach the CMOS options. This leaves me in a real bind.

Can anyone rescue me here? Wow I'm struggling. Any help you guys can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Lionel

 

[rude]

Can you give us your system specs and OS?

 

[biggz]

thanx for the quick reply rude...


It's a Dell Dimension Desktop. Dimension 2100 I think...


20 GB HD
64 MB Ram
800 Mhz Processor
(hmm... typing this out is making me realize i need some upgrades... )

It came with a Windows ME O/S, but ir was running XP before I thought I'd tinker with it... which wasn't smart... I appreciate the help rude.

 

[Elvandil]

You can start XP setup from a single Win98/ME startup disk. Then, you use D:\i386\winnt.exe to start setup.

(Chances are, if you have only one CD-ROM, the drive letter will be moved up one letter. So if D: is usually your CD-ROM, you will need to use E:\i386\winnt.exe to start setup. If you have 2 CD-ROM's, then F:\i386\winnt.exe starts setup. This is due to a letter being used by the RAM-drive that the floppy sets up.)

But it is a good idea to get one that loads smartdrv.exe in the autoexec.bat so that a disk cache is created. Otherwise, the DOS portion of setup runs very slowly.

This WinImage executable creates such a floppy disk:

http://www.freepctech.com/files/wxpboot.exe

It also contains some extras, like aefdisk, xxcopy, delpart, and zerofill.

 

[biggz]

Hey Elvandil...

I tried what you told me... and it gave me some hope, but then quickly crushed it.

It does not give me an E: or an F:... it gives me... R: and S:... haha... which is very unusual...

Also, when I go to R:\i386\winnt.exe ... it goes to a blue WinXP Setup screen... but shows an error message... which states:

An internal Setup error has occured.

Could not find a place for a swap file.

Setup CANNOT continue. Press ENTER to exit.

I have never seen anything like this before in my experiences with computers. I've had long difficulties where it took me forever to find out what's wrong, but this is ridiculous. It's been 3 days, and I don't think I'm getting anywhere. Wow...

If anyone else has any tips, they'd be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Elvandil.

 

[Elvandil]

Ah, I'm sorry. I forgot about the letter assignments for that floppy.

Did you format that hard drive before in NTFS? You may need to fdisk it from the floppy and remove the NTFS partitions before the DOS portion of setup will be able to "see" the drive. If fdisk doesn't want to do the job, run delpart from that floppy.

Since we don't know exactly what happened in the earlier installation attempt, it wouldn't hurt to run fdisk, remove all partitions that you find, create a new primary one on the drive, and format it from the floppy. Then you'll be sure the disk is clean and then try setup again. You will have the option during setup to reformat it as NTFS.

(Personal certificates can be exported by RUN: certmgr.msc

Personal > Certificates > Your name. Right-click, All Tasks, Export. You will be asked if you want to password-protect the exported key.)