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General discussion

can't complete reformatting computer

by brucewayne Aug 4, 2011 9:58AM PDT

have a dell E510 running windows xp pro. tried to reformat and before it completes the process I get an error message as follows:
coooo135 unable to locate component failed to start because WINSRV not found.
I don't understand why I'm getting this error since I was unable to complete the reformat process because of this error wouldn't allow me to continue to complete the reformat process.
what could cause this problem? could it be the memory? or the hard drive?
any help would be greatly appreciated.

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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There are many reasons for that error.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Aug 4, 2011 10:16AM PDT
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885523 for one. Many folk don't really format the drive and you find this or that left on the drive. Did you start clean? That is, no partitions then boot XP and let XP partition and format it? I use the quick format.

Also, don't confuse formatting with installing Windows. Different things.
Bob
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can't complete reformatting computer
by brucewayne Aug 7, 2011 3:47AM PDT

Hi, thanks for responding to my message.

I had to do the reformatting numerous times because at first I didn't realize that the cd-rom was malfunctioning and I was coming up with many file errors. after I replaced the cd-rom with a different one, the reformatting went off without a hitch.
the only problem I came across was the situation that I had mentioned in my original post.
windows went thru the whole process and finished the process, then I had that screen pop up saying that it's going thru an installation process, don't press any keys and the installation process will take about 30 min's.

and it just locked up in that situation until I had to press any key. then it proceeded to go to the desktop.

I was just curious about that message box since I've never encountered that before and I've reformatted several computers numerous times. so I was wondering if this was due to xp pro edition. I've never reformatted a computer with the pro-edition.
I've tested out the computer and it seems to run really well so far. device manager shows no problems.

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Again.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Aug 7, 2011 3:50AM PDT

Formatting is one thing, installing the OS is another. I can format a machine in about 1 minute.

Install errors are plentiful since Microsoft never supplied an OS that has all the drivers.
Bob

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