why does the weird stuff happen to me...?

[takiwa]

Alright, this is a long story...bear with me.

I got a new mobo and chip (VH6T & 1.1a Celly) the other day. I installed both, and booted to DOS. I ran Partition Manager, and formatted my ST317221A Seagate 17G using FAT-32 LBA , with a Standard IPL MBR (like I have done sooo many times in the past). I re-started, booted off the Windows XP CD, and tried to run the installation. At about 3%, I started getting all kinds of copy errors, and I had to abort the install. I tried this several times (re-partition, format, install) with the same result.
I thought my CD was bad, so I attempted a repair on another computer with XP on it...and it worked fine. Copying went fine, so I am pretty sure my CD is fine.
I took my CD-writer out of my machine, and ran the install CD with it in another machine...again, it went off without a hitch. Rule out the CD-writer.
I tried two other HDD's I had laying around, but their operational status was questionable to begin with. I could not get XP on them. However, I WAS able to install both 98SE and WinMe on them (also my 17G)...just not XP. The XP install files will just not copy correctly.
My question is this...is this mobo or HDD-related? I tried Celly 600 and 900 chips in this mobo, but with the same results, so it wasn't chip-related. Does anyone have the slightest clue as to what could be the problem? If it is my HDD, can they be repaired? Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome, as I am stumped...:confused:

[eh?]

that same crap happens to me and it sucks! while its copying files i have to hit retry copy file at least twice. but after that its fine.

[takiwa]

dude, I hit retry soooo many times, it crashed and gave me a bad_pool_caller error...

[eh?]

yep i usually hold enter with the thought that the computer will give up before me:D after a minute or so it goes:D

[takiwa]

that has got to be some kind of HDD error then, right? coz it only happens on mine...I've never seen it happen on anyone else's rig that I've installed XP on...

[Kingslayer]

Instead of doing the LBA thing and the IPL MBR thing with Partition magic, delete all the partition on that hard drive and let XP partition it for you in the setup. Let XP format them also. Maybe there is something with the way Partition Magic is doing things.

I can tell you right off that something is different with the way XP writes FAT32 and NTFS. All these drive image software companies have had to rewrite their programs to read XP partitions. Maybe this is an issue that you are seeing?

[eh?]

im not sure what it is, though its annoying as hell. the cd works fine on my other machines.... even when i put the same harddrive in it

**edit** you posted while i was typing king, i don't use partion magice and it still does that crap to me...

[Diggrr]

Mine gets crazy while copying files too. It has trouble reading the cd, and retry doesn't work no matter how many times I hit it. I just push the magic reset button, xp goes back to the setup and is fine with that file, but sometimes hangs on another one further in.
I use an Acer cd-rom. Sometimes it goes much better if I just put it in my cdrw (Plextor 121032), and wondered if it was the cd player or the transfer speed. The're both on individual ide ribbons/channels by themselves (raid board) so it's not a buffer problem.

That explaination about XP being strange about how it handles FAT32 sounds like the best explaination I've heard yet.
I just gave up and went back to 98SE, and shoved XP in the drawer. Even when I did get XP to run, it committed suicide within the week (usually 3 days) and wouldn't even boot. Guess I've just donated $200 to Microsoft's court cases, cause XP is garbage as long as I can't install it.:mad:

So, you are not alone my friend !

[deez]

if your CPU is overclocked then put it back to stock speed to install

but it sounds like its the hard drive...try a low level format this will take 4 to 6 hours probly then try a clean install boot from CD on top of that and see if that works. Also it could be your CD-rom...if you have a CD-RW drive install from that b/c they tend to read better than the generic cr-rom

[Yodums]

I'd take KingSlayer's advice, since I used Partition Magic to try to convert some drives to Linux Swap etc and it kept failing.

I like Windows partitioning its own thing and partioning its own drive.

I usually do the long format to be sure too.

Yodums

[takiwa]

I tried letting XP format the disc...I even tried converting to NTFS, thinking that maybe that would help. I seem to have a problem with this HDD...

[MoPMatrix]

"Why dos the weird stuff happen to me?"
I hear ya, I always get the weirdest freakin problems,
I had a similar problem a few days ago when I was installin 98se on my other comp, It would do the big install of all the files and then restart to finsih the config, but when it restarted it wanted to wanted to restart the whole setup again, and wouldn't boot from the HD, there was no boot disks in or anything, just didn't want to finish the install.
After 4 trys of reformatin an reinstalling I gave up and stuck XP on it :P
I guess it could of been a bad cd...
You should of seen what happened to my comp when I tryed to install the software for my joy stick, the installer locked up, then windows wouldn't even load :P

[Cowboy Shane]

I had a similar problem installing Win2k on a work machine. It would give up the ghost with random files during the copy stage, and if I managed to get past that, there would be corruption. I checked the HD, tried other cd's and cdroms, and then I thought about checking the RAM in desperation. I ran memtest86, and sure enough, the RDRAM had errors right around the 126 meg mark. After watching the screen fill up, I called Dell, argued for a while that the memory really was bad (they wanted to replace the cdrom), and finally got some new ram that fixed the problem.

I don't know if this will help you, but it couldn't hurt to check.

Memtest86 (http://www.teresaudio.com/memtest86/)

[oc jason]

maybe you already tried this, but try using a boot floppy and go to fdisk and format the mbr it self

format -mbr

[PDL]

Maybe srimmer has the right idea.
I had problems loading an OS once and it turned out to be a bad stick of PC-133.
If you are using more than 1 stick, go to just 1 and try. If you are using only 1, find another to try.

[takiwa]

I tried with only one stick of RAM, but again, a no-go...I think what was said earlier in this thread about XP writing the FAT tables differently might have something to do with it. I have been having smaller problems out of this drive, so maybe that's it. I can install 98 and Me, but we're talking 9X, not NT...Oh well, I got a 20Gb coming, should be here in 2 days...we'll see then.

[takiwa]

well, guys, just as a follow-up, there was something wrong with my HDD...so I got a new one, and I still got copy errors! I took srimmer's advice, and tried a stick of 256Meg Centon mem, and boom! Installed perfect...so I guess I had a mem problem, too...thanks for the heads-up...