I TRIED to do a clean install using XP, it froze at 15% during the formatting process, and I havent been able to continue instal or even boot the old tecra 8100

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHELP PLEASE
Tbeckstr

Is it consistently freezing at 15%? In other word, have you tried the install process more than once? You can still boot to the CDROM drive, can't you? If not, get into the CMOS setup and set the CDROM drive to boot before the hard drive.

If the format is freezing everytime, your problem is much greater than getting XP installed. You certainly don't want to experience data corruption later on.

What about getting ahold of a DOS boot disk and use it to create a bootable partition and format it with a FAT32 filesystem. Then try the XP installation again, except select the option to leave the filesystem alone.

The CMOS is set to boot the cd-drive...I tried the instal again today it froze at 77%. I do not have the optional floppy drive........

Does that mean 77% for the format process and not the total installation process? When it's "froze", do you see and hear any hard drive activity? If you do hear the hard drive head banging or re-seeking, then you'll need to replace the hard drive.

Try disabling XP's ACPI support during installation, some of older BIOS's do cause lockups. Hit F8 as your computer boots up from the XP cd...about the same time you see the message "Hit F6..."... or maybe just keep hitting F8 for about 20 seconds as the XP cd boots. Also make sure that the XP cd is not scratched.

New problem...made it the enter product id code,

then it went black, exception ERROR HHHHF

another problem, I dont have the optional external floppy drive......
Thanks so much..
.poor nubies :-(

Make an FDISK and delete the partition again in that, and then recreate a new partition, and when it asks you if you want full or quick format on the xp install select quick, if that freezes try full

Can you install a different OS, or use a different XP cd? I don't know which one the tecra 8100 is, but did it come with XP originally?

No, originally it had 98 or 2000nt.....I dont have the external a drive, and I cant seem to make a bootable cd,,I tried ISO Magic, with no success..............

I have gotten it past the windows registration key..new message. cant initialize windows(win32) missing hal.dll reinstal file...but it restarts the entire process and I get the same message