Trying to re-install Windows XP...

londonman81

spakkker wrote: »

When I googled error code the linked page seemed promising though far from conclusive. A dirty/damaged install disk seemed v. likely.

yeah I read that too - not sure where to get hold of another Windows CD though...

JJ_Egan

Wash the disc in warm soapy water to remove grease is always worth a try .

jje

Browntoa

ultimate Boot CD has disk clone tools

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

just burn to CD and boot the pc from it

Browntoa

this also does it, for free

The g4u 2.4 ISO CD image (zipped/uncompressed)

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

The question how g4u deals with different disk sizes arises a lot too. The general answer is, g4u works best with identical disk sizes & geometry. Putting an image from a small disk on a big disk works



4.4 Copying a disk locally

• If you just want to copy one local disk to another one with no network & server involved, the "copydisk" command is what you want. E.g. to copy the first IDE disk to the second IDE disk, use "copydisk wd0 wd1", to do the same for SCSI disks run "copydisk sd0 sd1".

djohn2002uk

This sounds to me like the Dell CD is only for use on a Dell PC with a restore partition on the HDD for reinstalling Windows.
Therefore, trying to get it to install on any other HDD will be futile. The error is probably saying that it cannot find the files it needs in the partition which doesn't exist on the new HDD, and formatting wont help that.
The best bet is to copy everything wanted off the old HDD to the new one then try booting from the CD with the old HDD back in the PC and you might be able to restore the old HDD back to "Factory Settings".
You could then put the new HDD back in the PC as a second drive. Only do this after reinstalling Windows on the old drive to avoid Windows again attempting to install on the wrong HDD.
I think your only alternative to this is to see if Dell can supply a new drive with a restore partition on OR buy another full copy of Windows XP from I know not where. I bought one before they stopped selling them for just this cenario because you can't borrow one and use your serial number either because yours isn't either a full version or an OEM version butanother version that manufacturers used for restore partitions. I think.
Just saw that you can get Windows XP Home for £49:90 and free delivery from Amazon.

pcombo

What I would suggest doing if u dont have another CD, Is Download an OS from microsoft technet free trial once burn it to diskand try install that. Or if your computer has a floppy disk download floppy disk format software and format the hard drive and then try the original xp disk you have.

googler

londonman81 wrote: »

......and even formatted the new HDD - this took around 3 hours as it's a 1TB HDD.

Is this the same size as the old one?

londonman81

googler wrote: »

Is this the same size as the old one?

Nope - this is bigger than old one

googler

Is the motherboard limited to a maximum disk size? One of my older machines was.