Help with Windows Installation

by RB1986 Nov 17, 2013 12:35AM PST

Hi there... sorry if i post this in wrong stop but very fustrated... I bought a 2 TB HD the other day and it registers as 1.93 which isnt the problem... I prefer XP then Vista over any verison of windows... My problem is when i go to install windows it after I have put the hard drive in another computer and formated it after i bought it i have put it in my other computer to install windows after doing a quick format. Once i go to install windows it comes up with errors during installing xp such as sys files and such.. or if it installs then when it reboots it says a disk error type thing... I thought maybe it might be the hard drive.. In one of my other machines i just copied a file to it just to see if it was the hard drive but files copy to it. I have put the hard drive in 3-4 other computers to think it was the one computer i want the hard drive to work in it but it wont install on those other computers... Ive been at this for 3-4 days now and not a single verison of windows work am i doing something wrong. Any help would greatly apprecatied..

The hard drive i bought was a Western Digital 2 TD 3.5 " Sata3 64 MB Buffer OEM Hard drive

Discussion is locked

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At 3 to 4 days please tell

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Nov 17, 2013 12:38AM PST

Tell us how you intend to add SATA support to XP?

There are thousands of prior discussions from IDE emulation to the F6 Floppy install method but I can't find the make/model of the PC so I can't show preference to one or the other.

Even if you get past that, the usual next hurdle is the other drivers. Sometimes there is no driver for an audio or video card.
Bob

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response

by RB1986 Nov 17, 2013 12:43AM PST

to be honest i seen that the hard drive was cheap 89.99 and it was a big hard drive so i went and bought it... my 500gig hard drive was kept on rebooting when it was in the middle of doing stuff in my xp so i decided to go buy a new hard drive thinking that maybe that would be it...

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Without make and model

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Nov 17, 2013 12:54AM PST

Of the PC I can't give a nod to the usual 2 solutions. I can't know if you discovered the usual solutions on your own and tried one, the other, both or didn't know about it from the discussion so far.

So, just in case, put this into google.

-> How to install XP to a SATA HDD?

XP never added this support as you painfully discovered and there are 2 or more ways around it.
Bob

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You're trying to pull a Cadillac with a motorbike engine

by wpgwpg Nov 17, 2013 1:06AM PST

XP is old and dying on the vine. You can't run a Cadillac with a motorbike engine. As Bob points out, the first problem you have is that XP as distributed doesn't support SATA which undoubtedly is what your 2 TB drive is. Once you get past that, you're going to have problems with other drivers. Finally MS is going to pull the last remnants of support for XP in April, so get Windows 7 or 8 and install that. A lot of folks don't like Windows 8, so if you're one of them, get Windows 7 while you still can.
If you insist on going with XP for reasons I can't fathom, you'll need to educate yourself about how to use a slipstream program to upgrade the XP install CD to SP3 to get SATA support. I urge you not to do that though because I strongly believe while that would get you past the SATA hurdle, you're just going to run into other problems with XP.
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Good luck.

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Putt putt.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Nov 17, 2013 1:16AM PST

OK, I'll tip my hand here. The F6 Floppy Install method is fun to demonstrate but heralds back to the days when computer techs wore white lab coats. It's archaic.

But that method worked in XP SP2 so while I prefer the last issued XP SP3 CD, SP2 will do fine here.
Bob

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Putt putt indeed.

by wpgwpg Nov 17, 2013 1:27AM PST

What's a floppy drive? Ode to DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1.

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Are you saying

by itsdigger Nov 17, 2013 12:49AM PST

that you couldn't install Vista either? Are these Retail versions of Windows ?.....Digger

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response

by RB1986 Nov 18, 2013 2:01AM PST

well ive lost the orginal copies but ive made back ups...

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You Do Realize

by itsdigger Nov 18, 2013 2:05AM PST

that an OEM version of Windows will only work with the original computer right?

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response

by RB1986 Nov 18, 2013 2:46AM PST

Never had any problems installing it windows like this before... The verisons will install on others except for this one...l I know the HD is still good because I can copy files to it as a 2nd HD

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Re: install

by Kees_B Forum moderator Nov 18, 2013 3:08AM PST

If several disks that install on other PC's but not on this one, it's a hardware issue.
If it isn't the disk (you've not proven that all by copying a few file to it, a good test is running the manufacturers diagnostics), it's optical drive, the motherboard or RAM.

It may be time to buy another PC. Don't you love those nice Windows 8 machines with their touch screens?
But you might prefer to run RAM diagnostics and try another optical first.

Kees

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That's a (slim) clue.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Nov 18, 2013 3:32AM PST

Copies would be on recordable CD/DVD media and an aging CD/DVD optical drive may fail to read those. I see we covered the old XP SATA issue so with this new clue I wonder if a fresh copy of the CD/DVD is next then try a new optical drive.
Bob

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