I am trying to format a hard drive and install WinXP on a Desktop Pentium 4 PC for a friend.....?

Question

I have 2 WiXP install boot CD's; (1) XP Pro install boot CD (2) XP Home Boot Disc (came with the pc). I would rather use the one that came with it as that is what it's built to use. I formatted the HD and started installing Win with the CD that came with it. At 84% done of copying files progress bar it started giving me an error message that was saying some DLL files were not found and to put the disc that contained the files and try again. I hit retry a few times and tried the other cd and neither worked. So, I hit "skip file" and kept doing it for every file for the rest of the installation. I knew this wasn't going to work, but I figured that I could repair it afterward if I could get into Win. But, after the restart and now I am getting this error message: “NTLDR is Missing : Press ctrl + alt + Delete to Restart”. (read the reast in the additional details)

After restart, I am no longer getting a message that tells me to hit key to boot from CD. I tried putting the D: drive at the top of the boot order and that didn't work. All I get is that message every time that I start the PC. I can't do anything. My questions are;

(1) Why am I unable to complete the installation? Why is it saying that all the files are missing (after the 84%) in the copying files progress bar during installation?

(1) What should I do? How do I get past this message to reinstall Windows with one of my two boot discs?

This is really frustrating. A simple hard drive and windows installation has never been this time consuming for me. Any help would be appreciated. I do not have a floppy drive on any of the PC's in my crib.

I got the computer booted with the XP Pro Boot CD but I am still getting the error message when copying the files at 71% where it sasy unable to copy some DLL file and I can't do anything from there except Quit, Try Again, & Skip File where it will most likely just say the same thing with the next file. Any ideas?

I tired using another CD Drive and it worked. Thank you very much to the first responder of this question. You were a big help!

Answer 1

Option #1 Check your memory modules. If you have a bad spot in your memory, the setup installation will fail or hang. Also check your CD or DVD drive. If a laser gets weak, sometimes it will read a CD properly and sometimes it won't. (This sounds like your CD Drive's laser pickup is quitting (going in and out) durning the installation)

Option #2 Check your hard drive. I have ran into situations where installing windows, the pc copied all the files, but upon reboot I would get NTLDR is missing. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart. (This would happen after copying all the files for setup)

Answer 2

Are you using and SP2 boot/load disk? If not, you should be. When you upgrade to a new MB and sometimes a new HD it will require an SP2 boot disk. If that doesn't work, you might try getting another disk from another source. I've had this happen more than a few times, and it always turned out to be a bad disk. If you don' have access to another CD, you might inspect yours and if it is scratched you might be able to take it to your local large video store and have them polish it for a couple of dollars. This will usually restore it to pristine condition and the files should be able to be read again. Best of Luck!

Answer 3

there can be 2 kinds of problems y nay have, one u may have a corrupted or damages win xp cd or a failure on the cdrom unit, try a new cdrom unit and a new winxp with xp sp2 added on cdrom and 2 u may have a broken hard drive that has the boot sector 0 corrupted and it doesn't let u install, try a new install on a brand new hard drive install with tohse same disks u got, if none of this works out let me know... good luck!