Reformatting XP

II Gorn II

II Gorn II

Geek
My friend got a Dell Dimension 4400 from one of his family members and wanted it reformatted before using it so all their information was totally gone.

So i attempted to reformat it, deleted the old partition and started a clean install of XP

once the installation loaded all the files and restarted on to the 2nd part of the installation it stops and says it's missing the "asms file" an to insert the XP disc

now i've tried the original XP disc from Dell, my crack XP disc from way back an created a new XP disc just to be sure, none work.

then i read it maybe the CD drive so i tried about 3 CD drives from my computers that i kno work. again no luck

next i figured id start all over but the computer will no longer let me boot from disc it just goes straight back to the install to tell me its missing the "asms file"

then i tried to install XP from a flash drive making a bootable flash drive which the computer wont let me boot from either even after playing around in the bios making sure my flash drive was the first thing to boot, again just straight back to the install.

Im totally lost on what to try next, i've reformatted 3 different Dell Dimension 4600 an never had a problem along with my custom computer like 30 times.

Thanks for any help =D
 
Can you get into Recovery Console via your installation cd? It's an option in the very beginning of the installation (blue screen... before you have an option to format).
 
try changing the cd rom...You say it won't boot, What does it do ? Can you get into your Bio's ? You need to try another CD/Rom drive..
 
already tried 3 different drives, that i kno work.
when i try to boot like a cd or flash drive it sits on the flashing dash an never gives me the option to press any key to boot from disc, just goes back to the XP installation after a few secs
i can get into the bios.
im thinking of updating the bios, see if that does anything

is there any way that this could be due to not having the original ram ?
 
Does it have ANY errors on start up ? Do you have it set in the bios to boot from CD first ? What Ram are you using ?
 
try this out
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311755
microsoft seems to think its the pc inability to read the cd drive.

you could also use a win98 se disc to boot up into dos.
delete/recreate the partitions in fat32 / format the drive
then copy the winxp files onto a folder on that drive and run setup from there.
this will eliminate the possibility that its the cd drive all together.
if it works then you can convert fat32 to ntfs in xp.
 
This will only work IF you have a floppy drive, Plus if you cannot copy files from XP disk, then how will it work to copy files from windows 98 disk..
 
win98 se cd's are bootable in the cd drive so there is no need for a floppy.
once in the dos environment with fat32 parition and formatted you can then copy xp cd onto a folder in that drive and run from there.
the difference is that something might be causing the cd drive to not respond/work during the xp installation phase whereas running it from the hdd eliminates the use of the cd drive.
 
Windows 95/98/And Me are all not boot-able Cd's, The First boot-able cd was windows 2000... In order to get windows 95/95/me to boot, you need a boot floppy disk.
 
i will let dave taylor tell you whoever the hell he is lol.

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/why_cant_i_reinstall_windows_98.html

"Some copies of Windows 98 came with bootable floppies, some did not. Thankfully, most copies of Win98 are bootable from the CD.
This started changing shortly after Win98 came out, as more and more computers were built that would boot from the CD drive rather than the floppy drive."

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000217.htm

"CD or DVD is not bootable
Not all CDs and DVDs are bootable; in order to boot from a CD you must have a CD that is stated to be bootable.
Keep in mind that Windows 95 CDs are not bootable; however, Windows 98 ME, XP and later CDs are bootable."

do you need more proof or are you still in disbelief?
i know this for a fact cause i did many many win98 installs off the cd.
very seldomly it was needed to use the floppy to boot when the cd wouldn't load the cd drivers properly or boot properly etc.
you probably obtained a pirated copy and most of those weren't bootable.
the original win98, me cd's were bootable so if the copy of the disc was exact then it will boot.
 
yep, so, this is issue was resolved. Being that it was a Dell, it had a recovery partition, and i do not remember what the name was, but its a fairly common issue. kept wanting to jump past a bunch of things and install from where ever the last recovery spot was. Anywho, used a bootable linux disk and Gparted to get rid of that partition and everything went smoothly after that. Minus the fact that the optical drive did not want to cooperate with the motherboard, so the bios wouldn't recognize anything in the drive and would have to restart like 20 times before it would boot from the disk. aanndd, ended up installing Mandriva 2010.2, because, thats how it worked out.

just figured i'd add this as it just popped into my head. this thread can be marked as solved
 
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