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Windows XP installation Nightmare

Z

zoltan400

Junior Member
I received a dell latop recently with NO OS installed on it .I have a copy of Win XP Pro CD and wanted to install it .SO I created a boot floppy and got the process working to the point where XP installation was initiated and files started copying to the Hard drive.

So far so good. Now XP asks the computer to be restarted in order to continue with the set up.On re -starting, the SCREEN GOES BLACK WITH a BLINKING CURSOR on the top left corner of the screen.

I removed the HD from the laptop and connected to another laptop via USB and was able to see the drive..So i copied the i386 folder from the CD into the drive and then put it back into the old laptop. Then tried going into C:/ winnt.exe - does the same process over again and on reboot..still see the black screen.

Is there a way where I can connect this to my other laptop(which runs XP as well) and try to install OS on the hD and then bring it back ?

Any help on this will be greatly appreciated.

Thx
 
Are you recreating the paritions during install? This sounds like the bootloader/MBR might be having issues.
 
Was the hard drive completely blank or formatted before installing XP? If not, did you remove all existing partitions and reformat at the beginning of the Setup process?
 
I did a format on the drive before installation. No luck. The thing keeps hanging upon restart.

PS: This is a dell laptop and I dont have the OEM install disk .Is this a problem?
 
You shouldn't need a boot floppy. A WinXP CDROM is bootable. Once it's booted the point where you have to make decisions you should have the option to delete the partion rather than just format it. Delete the partition, recreate it, and then do a full format.

Edit: Welcome to the Anandtech forums! 🙂
 
If you set the CD boot, you should be able to format first and then install the Win XP.

After Windows is installed and working, you must have the Dell Drivers disk for your hardware, especially your ethernet adapter, or you can download from the Dell site separately.

 
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