I'm trying to rebuild a Packard bell PC, but when i try and boot from the XPCD it says its missing a file?

Question

I've got my dads PC that is infected with virueses etc and has been running slow for ages now. I've taken everything off that he needs and am ready to create a new partition and reload everything back on. But when i boot from a XP Home CD I have (I'll be using the Genuine XP Key on the case), it starts analysing hardware but then just reboots, asking me to press any key t boot from CD again?? Whats going on? I've even tried a freshly formatted (in NTFS) HD in there, in case the original is currupted in some way but this time an error appears before rebooting stating "NTCongif" is missing. Any help or suggestions appreciated. before you ask the compnay that my Dad got this PC off did not give him any CD's.... not even the OS CD. I'm not too bothered about this because most drivers etc can be downloaded from packard bells site. The PC in question is.... http://support.packardbell.com/uk/item/index.php?pn=P480402601&g=2000

Answer 1

hmmm, PB's a notorious for this, is the disk you are using a genuine Packard Bell disk that came with the machine??. If not you will have major problems, you need the original disk and a floppy with the predifined install scripts. Try Googling PB groups, thats where i found the specific answer for the model I tried this on. I does'nt look good though, you may find it will only run from the shipped recovery disk to th OS it orginally ran, then you would need to apply PB supplied upgrades to it. The machine I tried this on had to revert back to Win98 as it would not move to XP. The main reason for this is proprietory components in your PB which only they (PB) supply the drivers for

Answer 2

Fully format the whole lot. Install xp and when it reboots do not press to boot from cd - leave it to buut up normally and it will boot into the remainder of the xp setup. Also dont forget that your product key will only work with 1 specific version of windows and there are dozens of different versions out there (eg xp pro, home, with or without sp1, sp2, corporate edition etc) .

Answer 3

Sounds like the disk controller is not standard or recognizable to the default installer. Usually this happens if the chipset/ATA controller is not a standard that was available at the time XP came out or is one that does not respond correctly to standard protocol requests. For that you need a special driver for that controller. You need to hit F6 when the first install screen pops up and says "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver...". You will then get an opportunity to put a floppy disk in with the boot level driver on it. If there is no floppy disk, you can make one out of the regular disk controller files. here are the links to microsoft downloads for the setup boot disks.

Answer 4

Why would the company your dad got the computer from be using XP Home? The key on the case is most likely for a XP Pro corporate version. Try the key that goes with XP Home disk you are using.

Answer 5

When computers come without a set of disks they have a feature for you to make a set of Recovery disks from the computer. Your dad, apparently, did not bother to make the Recovery disks. If the HD has not been wiped clean then you can still make the disks. Look in All Programs under PC Help and Tools for the link to make the Recovery Disks.

Answer 6

If you have a spare hard drive take out the old one and put in the other one. Do a clean install of Windows XP and test it out. If it works set the old hard drive as slave and run it. Take the data out of the slave drive if you have any left.

Answer 7

format the computer using the xp disc and start AGAIN... if you dont the viruses will still be there......