XP Wont Install

C

CrAsHeRKiDD

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Right.....


I have had windows XP professional installed for the past yr without problem... Last night i installed drivers/software for my iomega ZIP 100 (Paralell)... Restarted the machine. When it came to reboot it started ok and loaded windows fine.. then all of a sudden my mouse froze and everything just locked up. I hit the restrt button and it booted OK untill it got to the splash screen.

The error i was greeted with was "Unmountable Boot Volume". So i thought no big deal i know what this means and knew how to repair it... So i stick my XP cd in to the drive and set it to boot from CD and it does... UNTILL it says on the XP setup that its loading windows.. Then another blue screen appears this time it says "Unkown HD error" So i restarted AGAIN and tried AGAIN and it did the same. Tried again about 10mins later and it didnt say that error this time it just says "Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer".

But yet it let me install Windows 98 so i did thinking i would be able to install XP through it.. But no that doesnt work either even after updating my setup files.. it copied the files it needs to install but after my Pc restarted the installation froze. i tried this 6 times and it froze every time..

So if anybody knows whats wrong id love to know if not for me for my PC's sake ;)
I thought it would be just a problem copy of the OS but yet iv installed it 4 times from this CD and its been fine so iv ruled that out...

What pisses me of it i have a (E:\) partition on my drive which is NTFS and windows wont read it and all my data is on it... Is there anyway round this without loosing anything?????



Thanx for any help in advance :) :)
 
if ya have a copy of windows 2000 install it to gain access to the ntfs partition and files and back them up . windows 2000 will ignore any security options xp had in place and let you see all files from all accounts .
 
Thanx but i dont have acces to a copy of Win 2000... I could probably get one though :)
 
i think you can use the Win2000 Boot Disk for that feature too. no promises. good luck:happy:
 
true you would only need access to the windows 2000 recovery console but i find its alot easier especially if the system is doomed anyway to just go ahead and install it so i can get access to cd burning for backup .
 
actually, you can get into Recovery Console from the XP Cd. I just did it a while ago to delete my C: (dont ya love a freshly formatted drive).

make a partion in recovery console, enough to store the files you want to keep.. copy them over, double check to make sure they are there, format, install XP, copy your programs over from the drive you partioned earlier, delete (if you wish) the partion info, then the partion(if you want)..

should work. good luck.

(note: if you have a cd burner, you might want to invest in a CDRW or 2. they come in handy when you download freeware off the net, have documents you need to keep, pictures, songs, whatever.. then you can burn them on it, for a backup.)
 
This is for the original problem. Your zip drive seems to be the the problem>


A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

If this is the first time you've seen this error screen, restart your computer. If this screen apppears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation ask your hardware of software manuufacturer for any windows update you might need.

If the problems continue, , disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable compontents, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup Options, and then select Safe Mode.

Technical Information
***STOP: 0X000000ED (0X823D7BB8, 0XC0000006, 0X00000000, 0X00000000)


THE FIX:

Boot from the CD to the Recovery Console

Type: chkdsk /r (and wait FOREVER)
Type: fixboot
Type: exit
 
Thinking it was a dodgy copy of XP i lent one of my mate and tried again... Still no luck.. So i re-installed 98 and reebooted to dos mode and formatted my drive.


Tried once more and still nothing....


I cant even get to the recovery console because it fails before it gets to the options bit..


I installed the software on my (E:\) partition so if the problem was my zip drive then will the software been installed affect it?


So will formatting my partition solve the problem???
 
Umm is there a disk in the Zip drive?
I've seen this problem b4 if you have a Zip disk in the zip drive it will try to boot to the Zip and when it finds no boot file it will give you a big FAT error.

I always installed a disk ejector program so this wouldn't occur on n00bies systems.
just a thought!
 
no disc in drive im afraid but thanx anyway :).... HELP im still stuck :(
 
I decided to delete my (E:\) partition and start afresh...

So i dropped into dos mode from 98 and entered FDISK...

When it started i deleted my primary dos partition (one with the 98 install) and that deleted no problem... Then i tried deleting my extended partition (E:\)... It tells me "CANNOT DELETE EXTENDED DOS WHILE LOGICAL DRIVES EXIST"... so i though fair enough and whent to delete delete logical dos drives in the extended partition.. And it tells me "NO LOGICAL DRIVES DEFINED"..

So why did it say cant delete cos a logical drive exists and then totally contradict itself by telling me no logical drives defined?

What is a logical drive and how can i define one?

Is there any way around this?



Also is there anyway of formatting my (E:\) partition? I dropped into dos mode and typed "format e:" and it said invalid drive?


HELP ME IM GOIN MAD!!!!!
 
The error i get when trying to install XP....


I boot up from CD and it loads all the device drivers and then it just stops and gives me this error..


STOP: c0000221 UNKNOWN HARD ERROR
\Systemroot\system32\ntdll.dll



Hmmmm :huh: :huh: :huh: :huh:
 
Try installing with only what you need, RAM, HDD, FDD, CDROM if you installed 9x fine then there is nothing wrong with the disk(Hard drive) It is possible that something was wrong with your XP cd but you said that you had already tried someone elses copy...so I would just unplug all except what you need and go from there because it could be something wrong. (worth a shot a least)
 
Have you tried using the xp cd to format the drive?

Also XP has issues with zip drives. I would be removing the drive, loading XP, then get all the patches & updates for the zip drive then add it.
 
Originally posted by Hipster Doofus
Have you tried using the xp cd to format the drive?


Yes but it gets as far as loading the drivers and then brings the "unknown hard error up"
 
Your master boot record MAY have a problem. Pop in a boot disk and run the following:

fdisk /mbr

/mbr is an undocumented switch that formats the boot record on the disk. Use this at your own risk!!! <--- I can not stress this enough. This should only be tried as a last resort.

I will however share with you all, one of the greatest emergency recovery items I have ever found. It's called "Emergency Boot CD" (EBCD). This item will boot (granted you have a bootable CD drive) and will allow you to view NTFS partitions, run a Linux console, It will even let you read most floppies that are non-readable by Windows because of some error or other. Heck, that's not even everything. It lets you undelete files. Remember this command? (there are was around that too, if you are familiar with lock and unlock, but I am not about to get anyone involved in that... those of you who are familiar with this will understand) There are a few other features available (some that can't be mentioned here). It even lets you copy your own files to the disk and create a RAMDISK with them. You can copy a DOS virus scanner or anything else you choose. Hope you all enjoy this.

CrAsHeRKiDD: good luck bud. Hope that something I posted here helps ya!
 
Get Maxtor's diag/repair utility HERE and give it a shot. Do advanced re-certification (it works on most brands).

You could also clear your CMos (pull the battery for a while if need be) and see if that sets things up again. With the price of burners and CDR's so cheap, the ZIP drive is pretty much passe.
 

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