Need help reinstalling Windows XP Home...

[Ron Wilton]

Hi,

I am trying to assist a client who has a Gateway GT5405e desktop system. It came with Vista Home Premium, but was running horribly. User decided he wanted to go back to XP, and purchased XP Home OEM disk. I wiped the drive clean using DBAN, but now the Windows XP home disk will not load for install. I was able to boot Win2000 disk, but it tells me there are no drives present.

I need help!

 

[kimsland]

Here's your Drivers page:
http://support.gateway.com/s/pc/R/1009398/1009398nv.shtml
But the drivers supplied are for Vista (which came with it)
You may be able to work out from that page which drivers you can search for, for Xp

Here's a Repair page for Windows Xp Home:
http://www.windowsxphome.windowsreinstall.com/installxpcdrepair/part3.htm

Actually I think the client should use Vista (as that is what the computer came with).

Edit:

Actually you could try Chat with Gateway
.

 

[Ron Wilton]

Hi Kim,

i cant get past the blinking cursor in the top left of screen. And the system BIOS is set to bootup off CD.

 

[kimsland]

If you can set it for CD CD CD

But you may want to remove the power cord
Hold in the on button for 30 secs
And then put the power back in
And turn on again

Reply back!

 

[Ron Wilton]

Need help reinstalling win xp home...

Hi,

Unable to set to CD CD CD. Set to Advance in BIOS, xp home boot disk begins, checks system configuration, screen goes blank, and abour 2 minutes later comes back with message, "Inf file txtsetup.sif is corrupt or missing, status 47872". Setup cannot continue.

 

[kimsland]

you know the more info the better

Confirming the disc and CD drive are ok. Usually this is a sign of faulty Ram
You can test your ram with Memtest to confirm

edit:
Can be faulty hard drive configuration
Internal data cabling (including to floppy)
cpu faulty
hard drive faulty (or partition not clean)

 

[Ron Wilton]

Confirming equipment....hardware and software..

HI K,

I am in the process of confirming that the CD is good....if it is good I will next pop open case, check all cables, try to run again...if not successful, will run MEMTEST next, and will email results.

I appreciate your assistance!

Ron

 

[Ron Wilton]

Confirming equipment....hardware and software..

HI K,

I used my own win xp home disk, and the system goes to the xp home edition setup screen, where it says the following list shows the existing partitions and unpartitioned space.....

There is a window that says "unknown disk", there is no disk in this drive. It says this 4 times....

Normally i would just be able to select to setup windows on the selected disk by pressing Enter, or create a partition by pressing C, or delete a partition by pressing D....

Ron

 

[kimsland]

Probably in raw format

You will need to remove the partition fully
Either use Gparted (create a bootable CD from ISO) or Delpart (just copy this to a boot floppy, and run it on your system)

Delpart: will remove any stubborn partition

 

[Ron Wilton]

Will try gparted, then reply.

 

[kimsland]

Either will do, but I was hoping you'd do Delpart (but you need a boot disk for this)