Help! My Hard Drive crashed and won't let me re enstall XP Pro !!?

Question

I have a HP DV5000 laptop. It runs on a AMD Turion64. Something nasty apparently happened and totaly corrupted the C:\ drive. I got out my XP Pro SP2 CD to attempt to repair or reinstall windows. It starts to load setup but before it gets to the install/repair section I get an error. viaide.sys is missing or corrupt. setup cannot continue. Knowing this is a VIA IDE buss driver, I was horrified that my HD was fried. I went into BIOS and did the long and short HD tests. Both passed. I tried to install/repair windows again. Same viaide.sys error. I booted the PC with a Win98 Boot CD. FDISK showed no C:\ partition, so created/formated one. Tried to install/repair windows again. Same viaide.sys error. I put Setup and the I386 files on the HD. Ran Setup from the HD. Got This file cannot run in DOS error. Ran setup from the cmd prompt @ CD drive. Same viaide.sys error. Went to HP site. Problem is not addressed. Found out PC has a TI Buss so why a VIA driver error? How do I get XP to install??

I have Genuine 2 XP Pro SP2 CD's. One was unused prior to this happening. The HD tests good in BIOS and formats without reporting any bad sectors. It's not the install CD's or the HD.

Setup does not give the option to point to the file. Just "press any key to exit setup".

This is obviously a 64bit machine issue. I have read about like issues with NT and 64bits, But XP Pro is the OEM operating system for this machine and XP Setup runs differently from NT setup, so those fixes don't apply.

This is not an upgrade issue. It is an installation issue.

The motherboard DOES NOT have a VIA chipset. it has a Texas Instruments chipset.

There is NO OPTION to direct setup to the file.

AGAIN. THIS SYSYTEM D O E S N O T
HAVE A ~V I A~ CHIPSET. IT HAS A TEXAS INSTRUMENTS CHIPSET. THIS IS NOT AN UPGRADE ISSUE, IT IS AN INSTALL ISSUE. EVEN IF IT WAS NOT DANGEROUS TO LOAD DRIVERS FOR THE WRONG CHIPSET, XP PROSP2 SETUP DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO DIRECT TO THE FILE. ONLY "SETUP CANNOT CONTINUE. PRESS ANY KEY TO EXIT."

Answer 1

did you ever get to the partition/reformat hard drive prompt when you tried install from cd? If not , problem may be a bad install cd.

Answer 2

First thing, get an XP setup disk/ bootdisks from
http://www. bootdisk.com, and run the recovery console.

Then format, completely your hardrive using these setup disks and the recovry console.

Then restart your computer and insure that it gives you a read error, since there will be absolutely nothing on your hard disk.

If you do not get a read error, or some other type of error, or it tries to boot, it was not correctly formatted, and there could be an issue with your MBR it self , so you will have to run the fixmbr command from the recovery console, and then the format.

After that, you may use the setup disks again and get a clean install of XP, either by yeilding it from the recovery disks you have or by buying one.

This issue is not with you actual hardrive at all. It is also not becuase of the 64-bit capabilities of your CPU, unless ofcourse you are running XP64, instead of XP32. This issue occurs becuase of your chipset drivers. Either they were corrupted as you returned from a standby or hibernate, or recently you tried to update them, and the corruption happened from there.

OH and most important thing is do not format using the WIndows 98 bootdisks, because those can only read DOS partitions and not NTFS or Win32 partitions. This is why it probably could not read you partitions when you tried to boot from it!

Answer 3

are u booting from cd on start up?
or already have pc on and trying to install?try this first
turn off pc..as soon as u restart ...at the very beginning u should see....
to boot from cd press any key now..
it only shows for a brief second
2nd option is go into bios and change boot sequence to boot from cd first
just change it back when u r finished


I had the exact same issue my upgrading to Win XP from Win 2000.

I found a viaide.sys on the ASUS cd that came with the motherboard (A7V333). I had to browse to the file when the install process asked for the file, just putting the cd in the drive was not good enough.

I also ended up ordering the file from dynamiclink just in case since the ASUS cd file was for Win 2000.

The install worked fine and I upgraded to the last Via 4 in 1 drivers after the install was finished.

On another machine, upgrading the Via driver before upgrading windows avoided the problem.

I can send this file (I now have 3 of them) to anyone who needs them.
go here and read this
http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid=6&threadid=70043&enterthread=y

here is a download for what u need
http://www.dynamiclink.nl/htmfiles/rframes/info_sys/info_v/14.htm

only other thing i can think of is to try a disc with out service pack 2 preinstalled
if i found out anything better i will tell u

Answer 4

If you used win 98 startup disk and fdisk you will now have a dos partition, xp dose not work in a dos partition.after changing partition you have to format the drive ,you now have nothing on youre drive, solution- load win 98-then install xp, you can install as a seperate system which means you will have 2 operating systems which you can use either one,what install on one system you can not access from the other but this should fix the problem

Answer 5

Check your BIOS for any VIA IDE devices and enable them.

Try repartitioning and reformat your HD using WIn98 Startup Disk. Then copy i386 folder from your XP CD onto the HD. Use the WINNT32.exe, not the SETUP.exe, to run the XP installation.

Answer 6

Take the Hdd and connect the Hdd in the other system as a secondary Hdd and take the system backup and then reinstall the hdd in the machine and remove all the partions and reconfigure the hdd partions and install the operating system it will work fine

Answer 7

Hm big problem i see. here this might help i think...
Restart ur computer with ur windows disk in it
when it says press anykey to boot from cd press any key
accpet all the crap and say install windows xp
when it says to start out with a fresh copy, do so
and reformat it good and pick ur partioion
then move along..

Answer 8

Looks like the guys in the links below had the same type of problem. Don't know if this will help you but it's worth taking a look:

http://www.mcse.ms/message1700663.html

http://hardware.mcse.ms/archive12-2005-3-157933.html

Answer 9

I can give you a link that deals with hard drive problems.
Some drive problems can be easily fixed by yourself using easily available tools. I found the info at http://fixit.in useful. Try this site, if you can get what is required.

Answer 10

i would get a new hard drive because the corrupted sector has hit a point on your hard drive that cant be fixed. sorry
that is the best way to fix the problem