Can't install XP Pro

L

Lord Nassirbannipal

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 1, 2005
Messages
1,155
Decided to reinstall windows on my secondary rig, but I'm having some troubles.

It gets up to the point where it copies files needed for installation, but then I get this error saying:

"Setup cannot copy the file: ftdisk.sys"

-To Retry, press Enter.
.........blah blah blah"

I tried cleaning the disc, didn't work.

Tried the RAM in a different slot, no go.

Tried a totally different stick of RAM, nothing.

Tried my back-up copy of XP Pro, nothing

I ran a diagnostic tool on the hard drive and nothing bad came up.

I then tried installing Windows 98, and everything went fine. Installed without a hitch, so this further convinces me that it's not the HD, Ram, or DVD drive.

But no matter what I do, I can't get it to install XP Pro at all.

Any ideas?
 
It almost sounds like a bad disk, is it scratched at all?
Something else to think about... Win XP is WAY bigger than 98, so maybe your drive is bad... like the laser rolls along its track only so far and gets stuck, where as it can move less than that for 98 and not get stuck...
If it's the disk, try the old wet-sugar trick...


BTW, what are you doing with cyber acoustic speakers? lol
 
Wet sugar trick?

As for the speakers. I'm not exactly an audiophile, I just need decent, audible sound so I can enjoy the music and and movies that I watch. Cyber Accoustics are atleast better than those horrible DTG speakers that sounded like freaking tin cans. LOL
 
Oh I know what you mean. And I admit, cyber acoustic speakers aren't that bad. Nice and cheap too. Anyway, [H] posted a story about a week ago about how you could use wet sugar as a polish to fill in scratches...on CD's or Ipods.
 
sounds like a bad CD to me too. You could borrowing a friend's copy and seeing if that will work. If it does, create a copy for yourself for the future.
 
I tried a different CD, and I tried making another backup copy from the ISO on one of my other computers, and still no cigar.

If I hit escape so that it will skip the files it says it can't copy, it copies some of them, says that others can't be copied, then it eventually gives me a BSOD with a PFN List Corrupt error, which usually means bad ram, but I've tried it with two other working sticks of RAM and the same thing happens.

Argh, this makes no sense. I used the same CD to install XP Pro on this same machine a few months ago and everything was peachy. I haven't added or removed any hardware whatsoever, but for some reason it just won't copy these blasted files. The only other things I can think to do are to try it with a different hard drive and different DVD drive. If that doesn't work, then I've basically got a pretty big paperweight.
 
I had the same problem when installing XP and like you used a scratched disk. Long story short, the damn culprit was during the installation process, it asks you how you want to format the drive. Try a full format of the drive during the install process and see if that works.
 
I think I got it! ????
Your sig says you have 1G of RAM. Well, Windows 98 could only support 512 as I remember. So I bet what is happening is that when you use win98, it is accessing the part of the ram that is ok, while when you go to use WinXP, it uses all of it, including the bad ram sectors. Thus the errors.

It's a thought. Also, the same, I think, may be said of the DIMM slots.
Try another mobo too? Maybe the same sticks in another mobo...
 
I have sometimes been able to work around this problem by using an old 8X or 16X (slow) CDROM drive and 40 wire cable during the install.
 
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