WinXP wont install, Ubuntu says not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-

[kaihonsou]

Hey,

I had a n130 Samsung that had a failing hard drive. I had Windows 7 installed on another hard-drive and swapped it into the notebook, but Windows would not load. It would constantly restart.

I have 2 Windows XP discs. One is very old, and loads everything but at the "starting windows" part it bsod's. The other disk loads with the grey bar and I get a error along the lines of the CPU being incompatible with windows 64.

The XP discs are 32 bit. I thought formatting the disk and trying to the XP discs again would work but its the same problem. I tried Ubuntu and I get a "not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)".

Im slowly working towards the solution but would like windows XP on this. Anyone have any solutions? Would be amazing to have this working before the weekend.

Kai.

 

[Matt1970]

That sure is acting like a bad stick of ram. Try one stick at a time and see if the problem remains.

 

[kaihonsou]

Each disc has the same outcome at the same time, normally when trying to access the HD, or with one of the XP discs hitting that 64 bit capatibility error. I would of thought RAM would be more random. I'll give it a shot though, should of tried it earlier actually.

I ran memtest and it came up clean.

 

[kaihonsou]

"this cpu is not compatible with 64-bit mode windows"

Google is not helping, since I am installing windows XP 32-bit and still getting this error. Would a dban wipe of the drive and then the 32-bit Windows work after that?

Would it have anything to do with the MBR?

 

[Matt1970]

MBR errors typically happen right at bootup, not well into an install. Did you try one stick of ram at a time? Ram very much can give the same error in the same spot.