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10-09-2005, 07:11 PM
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#1 |
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Member (3 bit)
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 6
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Problems Reinstalling Windows XP Pro
Hello Guys,
I’m from England so please bear with me if my terminology is unfamiliar in places. I was hoping somebody on this forum (much more knowledgeable than myself on these issues) could help me fix a very annoying problem which is getting in the way of my work – I’m a student and writing this from the library.  Ok let me explain: Originally my laptop screen went black possibly due to me accidentally deleting an important driver through an ill-fated attempt to remove some viruses from my computer so I switched to using an external monitor for a while until I had time to remove important documents from my hard drive onto an external hard drive but not having full use of my laptop couldn’t last forever so I attempted to reinstall Windows XP Pro from the disk the other night…and it looks like I have made things worse. I hope those who are reading this are familiar with what I am talking about when I say I got up to the ‘Installing Windows’ phase of the reinstall (having previous gone through the ‘Collecting Information’, ‘Dynamic Update’, and ‘Preparing Installation’) only for the reinstall to come to a halt with the following message appearing, ‘An error has been encountered that prevents Setup from continuing. One of the components that Windows needs to continue setup could not be installed. The operation was cancelled by the user.’ And so I press ok and a ‘System setup log’ appears, stating the following • Setup failed to remove the product catalog IEEXCEP.CAT. • Setup failed to remove the product catalog SP1.CAT. • Setup failed to remove the product catalog DXBDA.CAT. • Setup failed to remove the product catalog DXXP.CAT. If this wasn’t bad enough I can’t remove the screen that it crashed on. I tried getting to Windows Manager but it wouldn’t work and every time I try to turn the computer off (Not through ‘Shut down’) it comes back up on the same screen (third stage of Windows XP Pro reinstall). I’m truly lost …somebody please help.  Jamie |
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10-09-2005, 07:28 PM
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#2 | |
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Member (10 bit)
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Montreal, Canada
Posts: 713
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Quote:
Did you format the drive before you started? Since your laptop likely has no floppy drive you will need to create a bootable cd with the software to wipe clean the drive. Or you can use an hard drive adaptor to connect to a desktop and perform the operation that way. |
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10-09-2005, 08:15 PM
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#3 |
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Member (3 bit)
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 6
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Re
Hello,
Thanks for your fast reply. No i didn't format the drive before and i don't know how to do this. My laptop does have a floppy drive. With this in mind can you please tell me what the next step would be? Thank You, Jamie |
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10-09-2005, 09:19 PM
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#4 |
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Professional Cow Tipper
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Enid, OK, U.S.A.
Posts: 2,859
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Is this a full version of XP Pro or a recovery disk version like they send out with Dell's, HP's, Compaq's, etc? If it's a full version then the XP disk is bootable and *should* be able to format your hard drive as well. Go into the BIOS on your laptop and set the CD drive to be the first boot device. Insert the XP cd, save and exit the BIOS, and let it reboot. It should give you a choice of booting from the cd or from the hard drive. Boot from the cd and go through the setup options and *I believe* there should be an option in there to format the hard drive before installing. If it notices the original attempted install on the hard drive and asks if you want to use or repair it, just hit no and see if the format part comes up. I think that's how its done, but its been awhile since I've had to install XP so I could be mistaken.
__________________
Excellent guess, Kreskin! Wrong...but excellent. *quote from Space Quest 6* |
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10-10-2005, 09:29 AM
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#5 |
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Member (3 bit)
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 6
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Bios
Hello,
Yes the copy is a full version of XP Pro however i don't know what BIOS is or how to get to it, my screen has crashed on the third point of installation and keeps returning to this point. How do i move on from this point? Thanks |
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10-10-2005, 10:05 AM
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#6 |
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Member (4 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Miami
Posts: 8
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ok to go to the bios when you turn on the computer hit the key delete to enter to the bios menu the in the second choice of the bios menu you will see boot options choose boot from d: then press f10 to save you choice when the the computer reboot gone askyou if you like to boot fron cd or hd choose the cd later the program will check if you have any ops installed don choose to repair choose to delete the partition and the os will format the disk ok any more questions felixaramirez@gmail.com
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10-10-2005, 01:52 PM
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#7 |
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Member (3 bit)
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 6
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Still not happening
Guys,
Thanks for all your help so far but I still can’t fix it (it’s probably me  ) but I found out how to get to BIOS and tried various options from the list including booting from the cd drive yet it always comes back to the same point where it originally crashed (first starting with ‘Setup is being restored’A few things however: • When I try to boot from the cd I didn’t receive any setup options …is it possible I am doing this wrong? • It doesn’t mention anything about the attempted installation just goes straight to it. • Could it be a problem with the disc itself? My friend has a recovery disc for a version of XP home I could borrow if I needed it. Any more suggestions? |
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10-10-2005, 02:57 PM
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#8 | |
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Member (10 bit)
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Montreal, Canada
Posts: 713
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Quote:
You said your laptop has a floppy drive? If possible determine which brand of hard drive is in it, i.e. maxtor, and from the manufacturers website dowload the diagnostic and disk preparation software. It usaually is a self extracting file that allows you to create a floppy disk. In the bios of the computer set the floppy as the first boot device and go from there. You can run a diagnostic of the drive and also format the drive. |
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10-11-2005, 02:02 AM
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#9 |
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Member (12 bit)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 2,509
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What brand is that laptop?
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10-12-2005, 12:02 AM
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#10 |
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Member (3 bit)
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 6
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The Laptop is an Acer - aspire range.
Have yet to try the latest suggestion had to work late last night but will let you know if it solves the problem, any furthur input might still be useful. Thanks again for the advice so far |
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10-12-2005, 11:05 AM
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#11 |
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Member (12 bit)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 2,509
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Check the manual under Acer eRecovery Management. Try using that.
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10-13-2005, 01:13 AM
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#12 |
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Member (5 bit)
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: silicon valley
Posts: 23
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Your problem appears to be the installer refusing to replace certain Windows files that are on your HD. This is likely becuase you aren't formatting the drive, and are recovering/re-installing over an existing Windows directory instead of replacing it with a clean and fresh installation.
When you install XP from a CDROM, after seeing "Setup is Loading Windows" you should see a screen that asks you to press F8 to accept the license agreement. (Press F8) The subsequent screen begins asking you if you want to do a fresh install or repair / recover the old install. You want to install a fresh install. Read the screen carefully and choose the option that does NOT recover or repair the old Windows. Within a screen or two you are asked if you want to format the drive. You want to answer yes, assuming you have all your valuable files backed up. Select Quick Format NTFS or XXXX Format (I forget). I suggest the second option. Quick Format simply erases all directory entries, but the second XXXX erase actually recreates the file system on that drive. |
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10-30-2005, 06:14 AM
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#13 |
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Member (3 bit)
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 6
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Hi Guys,
Sorry about long delay replying to this thread, it was because I was trying to learn some DOS to fix the problem, but that doesn’t seem to be the answer either as I can’t boot from the inbuilt d drive in my laptop as it’s broke (I think I burnt it out – and I have been using an external) so attempting to reinstall anything through DOS seems futile as I believe it will not recognise drivers for the external cd so I was hoping to explore another avenue by reconfiguring the hard drive as stated above. However I could only manage to open the back slightly enough to reveal it was an IBM Travelstar but I couldn’t determine anymore details as I couldn’t get it fully out of the case. It doesn’t seem to just ‘slide out’. Any advice on this? Does anybody know which website to get a disc configuration utility from to fix this or if it would even be a better option just to change the hard drive altogether? Thanks in advance, Jamie |
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10-30-2005, 08:01 AM
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#14 |
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Member (11 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Mt. Hope, NY
Posts: 1,213
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If you can get the hard disk out of the laptop you can hook it up to a desktop with this adapter to format or partition the disk and run diagnostics. Then replace it if its still good.
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10-30-2005, 07:58 PM
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#15 |
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Forum Administrator
Staff
Premium Member
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Joplin MO
Posts: 37,791
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You need Hitachi Drive Fitness Test. The download will make a bootable floppy. You can do a full test on the drive, and a full erase if need be.
www.hgst.com |
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