Reformatting HDD Help

[Shiloch Veneficus]

Well, basically what you did with that 2-hour format last night should have wiped clean anything that was on the hard drive.

As far as memory goes, I find it hard to believe there is a bad memory block, as that UBCD loads the entire OS into memory, and surely that would have given you some type of problem.

There is a simple test, however, to test if you do have bad memory that is causing the stop error. Remove one of the chips, and try to install. If you still get the error, swap it out with the other chip, and try again. If you still get the error, it probably isn't bad memory.

I suppose it is good to go ahead and try that, because it will rule out bad memory as a cause of this problem. After you've done that, I want to use the UBCD to wipe the master boot record. That will rule out any chance of an ntdll.dll laying dormant there causing some kind of problem with the installer.

[Cpt_Winters]

Alrighty, I just swapped the memory sticks multiple times (tried it in 6 different configurations), and it all ended in the same result, the XP SP2 CD still gives me the STOP error. So this shows that the memory is not the issue, which is a good thing (I'd hate to buy MORE ram ), but it still leaves us with a problem with the installer. So how do I wipe the master boot record?

[Shiloch Veneficus]

What does your minted CD do if you try it with that?

[Cpt_Winters]

When I try it with my XP CD I again get the disk boot error

[Cpt_Winters]

I have all day today to try to fix my computer. I hope you have off too and we can get this thing fix. Let me know what's going on w/ the master boot record and the STOP error. Thanks

[Shiloch Veneficus]

Unfortunately, I have to work tonight. I was off yesterday, but I'm sorry.

I was trying to boot with the UBCD and then stick in the Windows XP CD and try to run Windows Setup from within Windows here at home this morning, but I wasn't able to get it to work. I'll have to fidget with the RAM drive a little, I think. You can try it and see if you can get it to work.

I'll be back later tonight.

-Shane

[Cpt_Winters]

I noticed there is an option under New Tools in the bootable CD that says Setup Windows XP; I think I'll give that a try, and if they doesn't seem to work, I'll try deleteing my partition and then formatting it again because the last time I never had to delete it (it was never there in the block, so I just formatted, maybe that's my problem? who knows). HOpe something works! Ciao 'till tonight.


*edit

I was unable to use the Setup Windows XP in the New Tools menu of the bootable CD because it requires certain XP setup files to be on the hard drive I'm afraid. No matter though, we'll dicuss solutions when you return tonight, like helping me to erase the master boot record .

[Cpt_Winters]

Hey again,

It's about 12:30AM right now, just wondering if you will be replying tonight cause I really want to get this thing fixed and running again before the weekend is over, so if you could post any instuctions on deleting the master boot record or anything else that might help, please do so. And as always, thanks!

[Shiloch Veneficus]

I've been fidgetting with my testing setup since I got home. I don't have anything new, yet.

I really don't think wiping the MBR is going to help anything at this point. In fact, it will almost guarantee that you will have to redo the format.

I think the culprit of this disaster is a corrupted ntdll.dll file on the CD I sent you. Since I was in a hurry last week, I didn't verify the burn like I *should* have done, and there was probably a bad block on the disc.

I tried several times to copy the contents of the XP CD to the HD of my testing PC using the boot CD, but for some reason it locks up on me and I can't ever get through the process so I can try that Setup tool you found.

I'm assuming you still have access to your friend's PC, right? Does he have CD writer?

[Cpt_Winters]

Yup

[Shiloch Veneficus]

Check PM

[Cpt_Winters]

Hello Shiloch,

Yeah, I checked the PM. I got it, but my friend will not let me use the link because he's very afraid that it may be a virus. So there's no way I can download it, (I've tried relentlessly to convince him to download it, but to no avail), but that isn't a bad thing. I will be going home for Thanksgiving on Tuesday and one of my old neighbors is a computer genius, and I know he'll be able to help me fix this odd issue first hand. I do really appreciate all your work and effort for helping me out these last couple of days. I will let you know how the holiday goes when my computer finally gets fixed, and until thanks for all your time and patience with me. Take it easy buddy, and have a great holiday!

[Shiloch Veneficus]

Well, it's good you'll be getting it fixed at least.

If I could put my hands on it, I'd bet money I could have it up and running within a couple hours.

And.. oh yea... a 644-meg file on a qualified network engineer's website.. a virus?

[Cpt_Winters]

Hey

I finally fixed my computer. All I really had to do was insert the bootable xp disk, install XP by copying all the files to the hard drive and then when I restart, everything worked and loaded up and now I have a fresh clean system with Windows XP on it
I bought I new HDD as well at Staples for only $30 (Maxtor 200GB). There is still a slight problem. Nothing serious I don't think, but it might take me a while to figure out. My new HDD is 200GB, but when I partioned it and formatted it with the Maxtor CD (the manual told me to do this over the Windows Disk Management), there is only 128GB free and I still have an unpartioned space of about 60GB that I would love to use somehow. I'm gonna fool around with that right now, but let me know if you have any solutions.

Cheers!!!

[Shiloch Veneficus]

Well, if you go into Disk Management, you should be able to create another partition in the unpartitioned space and format it without any problem.