installing windows XP (cyclic redundancy error)

I don’t know what the deal is here. Been trying to get XP re-installed on my old POS laptop and it’s giving me problems.

I had it installed at one point and time and don’t recall how I did it (this was more than a year ago). EVERY TIME I get to the install screen, after it formats the drive and copies all necessary files, it gives the error about 5 mins into it.

I’ve tried a CD rom as well as a DVD rom, I’ve tried 3 different hard drives, different memory and still cant get it to work. The CD is fine BTW… works on every other machine I’ve tried it on (and even worked on this one in the past)

It lets me install windows 2000 fine as well as ubuntu, but to run the software I need… I need XP on it.

This is a 300Mhz laptop, ATi Rage 3D, 256mb ram

any ideas? I’m up for unconventional methods too… I knew I should of just “fixed” the old install instead of starting fresh

edit: How can I make one of those “no hastle” install cd’s? Maybe that would force it past this problem?

CRC usually means a bad CD or the CD-ROM drive is having a hard time reading the disk. Or, you have bad memory.

Do you have an external CD-ROM drive you can try? Can that laptop actually USE an external drive?

As for “used different memory” did you run MEMTEST to find out if the memory is error free? I’d try that as well… as you may have multiple bad sticks and not know it.

nah, haven’t tried a memory test yet. I’d assume that they’re ok though but I guess you never know. Both of the machines were working fine previously.

The compunter cannot use an external device afaik. I was hoping that there was some sort of boot manager that I could use that would do this (load USB drivers so I can then install from an external). I read online that this is a common problem and you need to take the CDrom out of the boot cycle entirely but cant on this machine… I can only move it to last.

I even tried upgrading from windows 2000 to XP, but I get the same error. :\

it’s a real bummer. My only other option is vista, but there is NO way I’d even attempt that lol.

definitely MemTest. use openSUSE’s liveCD…

Another way to do this is to copy i386 directory inside WinXP’s intallation disc into your HD…preferably of course, after reformating the HD…

then boot into your HD using floppy or something…and run setup from inside i386 folder.

I did this when I re-installed XP on my Vaio laptop with no optical drive…

thanks Karu, I will deffinitly try that. Pretty sure I have DOS 5 laying around here somewhere.

Is there anything else I need to do? OR just simply run the .exe? any command line switches or anything?

Its a disk error

^no prob.

I think it’s “winnt32.exe” that you want to execute…

you can also create boot disk from other windows computer…

IMO, I think you should run test your memory with memtest…make sure everything’s okay…

The no hassle program to create install CDs is called nLite…

Is the CD 100% perfect?

Probably not, cos’ OP said he could install and run Win2K and/or Ubuntu…

ITS AN ISSUE WITH HIS WINDOWS XP DISK

Use nLite create a CD based off the i386 folder off that CD(This method is probably more fault tolerant)…I am willing to be you XP disk is slightly scratched or something…The machine is loading drivers off the XP cd it hits a fucked up spot on the CD and you get the CRC error.

yeah, I’ll run memtestx86 when I get home. This computer is pretty old and tired, but would be nice to get a little more life out of it.

yeah, that’s a possibility. but OP said CD’s fine.

Last time I got similar error, it turns out to be the CD-ROM…I switched to another optical drive and it worked.

thanks man :tup: The windows cd is pretty much perfect. I just used it last week to setup a virtual machine and no errors, but then again thats new technology versus, I assume, a double speed cd rom lol

I can try making a backup of it to see if that produces better results.

That’s a cool idea too.

I think I used a tool called vLite to create a SlipStream disc for vista. It combined Vista installation and latest Service Pack (SP1). I wonder if we can do this with XP and SP3.

thanks again guys

:beer:

will post back with the results

The issue I think that happens is…Different hardware combos load different drivers…you probably hit a driver it needs to load on a fucked up part of the CD…

Exactly what I said; Either the CD or CD-ROM not reading it correctly or perhaps memory since you said it fails 5 minutes after the setup starts.

You’ve got some great options in here with copying the CD to the hard drive and then doing the install direct from that folder.

that makes perfect sense. Heres to hoping

knock on wood

Even if you do get it working XP is going to run like complete ass on a 300 mhz with 256mb ram.

EDIT:
Ass that has dined on nothing but Mighty for a month.

lol you’d be surprised. When I had it running XP before, it actually wasn’t too bad. Originally it only had 64mb of RAM and it was pretty slow, but once I went to 256, it ran fine. You just cant run much in the background