Problem installing WinXP

[srinathtk]

Dear Friends,
My home computer has the the following config:
Celeron 433 Mhz+160MB RAM+810e mother board with buit in sound cardand VGA+10 HDD+Windows 98 SE installed.

I got one new 40GB hdd. I wanted to instal WinXP Porfessional on it. I loaded the Win XP at my office to that HDD and connected to my system at home. When I booted the system, WinXP could not start. When I checked up with my vendor, he suggested to format the system connected to my system and instal WinXP. I got Seagate Disk manager, I formatted the New 40 GB HDD, connected it as Primary master and started loading WinXP. It copied all the files, it restarted once and started the installation. At certain stage, it stopped and a black screen appeared and displayed message that it could not continue.(Coomand prompt kind of screen).It said some page fault etc.

The similar experience has happened to me when I tried to instal WinXP on my earlier 17GB HDD.

Now I am suspecting my systems setting for this problem to occur. I tried installing WinXP professional and also WinXP home edition. I have the same experience.

I really do not know whether it is the problem witn my hardware or the software.

Can any one help me?

[Statica]

Hi srinath
A few of things:
1) XP on the machine specs as yours (Cel. 433Mhz+160MB RAM), while possible - will give you no conceivable advantage. You'd be definitely better off with Windows 2000 or the like. XP's minimum system requirements state 300 Mhz processor and 1.5GB disk space - however real world usage makes those requirements much higher.
2) It is not enough for us to know that XP generated A message, the message itself is a valuable clue and as such we would be able to help you better if you noted down the error message.
3) If you have repeatedly got this error, the first thing I would check is memory. It sounds like you've added on old and new sticks of RAM to reach at 160 MB; make sure that you test out the RAM. Are you sure that the RAM you have used is wholly compatible with your motherboard?
4) Usually, you cannot load an operating system on a drive on a computer, and then decide to move the drive to a new system and expect it to boot. Only if you had the EXACT same system specs on 2 machines would that work flawlessly. XP needs to be installed on a computer system, not enough to make it sit on a hard drive. And finally;
5) You dont need a 3rd party application like a disk manager to format. You should be able to partition/format the drives once you boot up with your XP CD and go through the installation stages.

HTH

[srinathtk]

Thank you all of you for your kind help.

Thank you statica for analysing my problem correctly.

As per your point no 3, you have exactly analysed my RAM status. I have added 128MB to a old 32MB stick. I never suspected my RAM. Now I will try with only 128MB latest piece of RAM.

As per your point No 2, yes I did not note down the message for the future reference.Now in my next trial (after keeping only single piece of RAM), if this message occurs, I'll note it down in detail and inform back to get more help.

I completely agree with Point No 4 and I was foolish enough to expect the HDD to boot on my home system the same way it booted in my office.

Thanks for kind help. I'll soon get back after trying out.

Regards,

Srinath
India

[noby]

I heard that when you did this (move the HDD with Xp installed to another system) it would work if you do an over the top install, which would bring up the new HAL.

you agree on this Statica?

noby

[Statica]

Hi noby:

Yes it would work in most situations, but here's why I didnt suggest it:
a) The person is doing a fresh install, which means that a clean install is the best way to go to eliminate any peculiarities that might come about. If it was an existing XP system, and there are tons of programs and/or files that werent backed up then this might be a worthwhile attempt. However, under most circumstances, if you have an opportunity to start afresh its best to do a squeaky clean install
b) Srinath is already battling other issues with hardware reliability/compatibility. Doing an install on top of this would not help much, and to top it off would not help in diagnosing the problem. Since he tried doing a fresh install, unsuccessfully, we already know that there are problems.
c) An in-place install works under most circumstances; however in my personal experiences (and this might not be the norm), throw in a VIA board (or sthing as finnicky) somewhere in the pipeline and you've got BSODs galore

Hope that explains the (squiggly) line of thought on my original post.

[srinathtk]

Thank you very much friends,

All my problems got solved after I removed old 64MB RAM and make my system work with only 128MB single RAM stick.
I was able to instal WinXP also without any problem.In my earlier posts I had some problem with my USB also. Fortunately, this problem also got solved by this action.

thank you all for your kind support and help.

Regards

srinath