Windows XP install

[leo1954au]

My sister's computer was continuously rebooting to the menu that you get if win xp is not shut down the right way but no matter what option I selected it would still go back to the menu so I decided to reformat the HDD and do a clean install but every time when windows get's to the part were it installs the setup files it shows error messages, some times it's 30% then 60% and it even got too 96% before it showed an error, I know it's not the windows CD because it's only a new one that came with her PC, I've also tested her DVD drive and that is ok.

I even tried taking her HDD and putting it in my system, The win CD installed ok right up to the finalization of windows but after putting the drive back in my sisters PC to finish the install it wouldn't detect windows was installed, Hope someone can help with this

My sister system is a celleron 2Ghz with 512 meg ram and onboard sound and graphics but thats about all I can tell you, it's an old Acer system

 

[Kcircyrd]

Windows is designed to not allow what you described of putting the drive in your computer and then in her computer to finish.

How do you know the Acer's memory is good? What makes you believe the hard drive is good? Remember that Acer uses some of the memory to run the video graphics. 512 is enough if all memory is good, but may not be otherwise.

 

[leo1954au]

I have removable trays in my PC so I put it in my machine as a slave and formatted the HDD and did a test for bad blocks and it came up ok, But you mite be right about the memory as it's the only thing I can think of that's causing windows to not install but it use's DDR ram and I don't have any as my PC uses DDR 3 ram.

 

[Kcircyrd]

A test for bad blocks will not tell you whether it is bootable or not.
It should boot in her machine even if there is only 128 MB or RAM, and the format would bypass any bad sectors. As a slave, you know nothing about it it's bootability, really.
If you format the drive in her computer, and you get errors, what are the errors? Any of them, word for word.
If that Acer hard drive is a Maxtor, Diamond, or Hitachi, it could be the drive.
It would be helpful to have a full report on this Acer... We know it is an Acer Celeron with 512 MB, and a working optical drive as far as you know. If the optical drive is working, how do you know? What test did you use...

 

[leo1954au]

no error when drive is formated on my sisters PC or mine for that matter as I tryed formating the drive on both, the errors are when win XP starts to install setup files.

Some times it will get too 30% and other times it will get as far as 90% before I get the error message saying windows cannot copy a file but it's never the same file

 

[gguerra]

Another thing you can try is to update the BIOS. Swap the memory (or remove one stick if it has two).

 

[leo1954au]

Problem fixed, It turned out to be a bad 256meg stick of ram and as soon as I took it out windows installed strait away without any error messages so instead of just leaving 256meg of ram she brought a 1gig stick of DDR ram for $85 as DDR ram here in Aus is more expensive than DDR2 ram