A little help from my friend(s)

[Twinkletoes]

My fame as a partitioner and formatter of hard disks, installer of multi-language versions of Windows simultaneously (they also run simultaneously) has spread the length and breadth of the country, and I am now getting tired of all these people knocking on my door asking for help. (I've got enough bloody problems with my own herd.)

Before me on the floor I have a brand-new second-hand machine which I'm trying to put Win XP on. I've formatted c: to FAT 32, and I want to get to the Windows CD using a start-up disk for 98/XP I made the other day. I can run scandisk on c.

I then plan to go to the i386 directory on the Windows CD and run winnt which worked very well for me the other day. But I can't get to e or f or g because "Device driver not found: MSCD0001. No valid CDROM device drivers selected".

Any one currently on line got any ideas ???

[gino x]

Erm..did you see that the CDROM device driver(s) has loaded?

Happened to me before when I installed Win98 w/ the startup disk and accidently selected the option without CDROM support, so no driver loaded.

[Twinkletoes]

I pressed the with CDROM support thing. At the moment I'm effing around in the BIOS settings (HEEEEEEEEELP!) and I can see that the Boot Sequence is CDROM, C, A which must be wrong ?



PS-- What is an SCSI ?

[tmx468]

The boot sequence there sounds fine to me...

Why not boot off the CD?

[tmx468]

SCSI is an alternative connection type to IDE.... unless you have a SCSI card and devices, you do not need to worry about it :)

[PresterJohn]

if that is a genuine xp cd, you should be able to boot directly fro it and not have to use a startup disk.

1) boot the machine and get into the BIOS setup (usually by hitting Del or one of the F-keys)

2) check that the boot order is: 1) floppy, 2)cdrom 3)hard disk

3) reboot and see if it detects the cdrom. if not, then d/l the boot disks from MS. you will need 6 floppies - it will prompt you for each once you run.

link is here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310994

[Twinkletoes]

No, it's not a genuine XP Pro disk, it came 'second-hand' with the machine. I'll change the boot order back, and see if I can boot it with my own genuine ones.

Did you know incidentally that if you re-install XP Home before it has been activated, that the 30 day period starts - or appears to start ! - again.

Thanks so far. I'll report back in an hour so (still got guests !)

[davidw]

Try changing boot order to A: CD-ROM: C: and then use a win98se boot-floppy to load drivers. Then... go to the CD-ROM and load windows.

[Nukes]

You also need to load smartdrv I think. (disk caching)
Why not just use the XP boot floppies? They're most likely to work.
Did you know incidentally that if you re-install XP Home before it has been activated, that the 30 day period starts - or appears to start ! - again.
Or you could just unregister the dll's and not activate it at all.
SCSI is a different type of disk interface. ATAPI is a form of SCSI-over-ATA. Don't worry about it. If you don't know what it is, you don't have it.
You just need to load the .sys file in config.sys using a DEVICE= line, and run mscdex in autoexec.bat with the drive identifier. If you have problems with this, go to www.bootdisk.com and get a disk to suit you.

[Twinkletoes]

Everything seems to be ticking over nicely...so far so good. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing...

Thanks Guys, and thanks Mr Gates. PJ, not for the first time, I touch my hat to you.


PS--- Hmm. Anybody know what the following seven files are good for:

cyclad-z.inf and y.inf
headsp~1.wmz
minipl~1-wmz
SV-262e1.png and e3 & e4 ???


(I suspect that the latter have something to do with the Swedish language, "sv" in Microsoftspeak.)

[ThRoNkA]

Microsoftspeak

DONT GIVE MS NEW IDEAS FOR PRODUCTS!

Ahh the horror! Bad Alien Bad!

[Twinkletoes]

Originally posted by ThRoNkA
DONT GIVE MS NEW IDEAS FOR PRODUCTS!
Ahh the horror! Bad Alien Bad! Do I take that to mean you don't like MS, their products, and pricing policies ?

Or, to talk MICROSOFTspeak: Big Bill good boy.


I have become a definite Microsoft fan - CAN YOU HEAR ME EVERYBODY ??? - despite, or maybe because of, the trials, tribuations and traumas (does that sound dramatic enough ?) which I have been through in the past week or so.

[Cowboybooter]

I've always been an M$ Fan, TT! And I have a qualification in Trauma! :D

:)

Bob