Member Avatar for kaiking328

Hi, this is an emergency. my cousin had an old computer. his harddrive storages is only 8000mb. he had windows98 when he first got it. now he wants to install windows xp on that pc. but it got lots errors. finally i got to the point where its installin. but not even half way. its says cant be installed. i though its becuz hardrives 2 small. o i hurrily went to best buy and got an external hardrive andinstall. but it keeps errors and not workin. some say i86 error7. or curropted. wut can i do to install xp?

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Summary and practical next steps for the install problems described by .

The symptoms you describe (many file-copy errors during setup, skipping files with Esc) almost always mean one of three things: the install media is unreadable, a hardware fault is causing read errors, or the installer is being asked to write to a device it cannot use. was right to suspect a damaged disc label; is right to urge an immediate backup — skipping files will leave an unbootable, broken Windows install.

Do this in order (stop and back up before any more installs):

  • Backup first. Power down and either remove the drive and attach it to another PC, or boot a Linux “live” CD/USB and copy important files to the 60GB external. Do not continue installing until data is safe.
  • Verify the install CD and drive. Try the XP CD in another computer or copy the CD contents to a working PC. If files fail to copy there, the CD is bad. Burn a new copy from a clean ISO at the slowest burn speed, use a good-quality disc, and mark only the label side with a soft felt-tip marker.
  • Check memory and the hard drive. Run Memtest86 (bootable) for several passes — bad RAM causes random copy failures. Run a disk check/diagnostic on the HDD (or use the Recovery Console and chkdsk /r) before reinstalling.
  • Install to an internal drive. XP setup does not reliably install to USB external drives. Replace the old drive with the 60GB internally (check jumpers and BIOS detection) and run a fresh clean install from good media. Do not press Esc to skip file errors — fix the underlying read/hardware issue first.

If problems continue after new media, known-good RAM, and a different optical drive, the HDD or the motherboard IDE controller may be failing. At that point try installing the 60GB drive in another machine to isolate hardware.

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Member Avatar for kaiking328

now the installation is runnin. but at 3%, it came out another error. it says
installation cant copy following file:
plz mke sure u have ur installin cd in the comp.
or u may skip, but this will cause more problems in the future.

Member Avatar for kaiking328

now i am on 7%. from 3-7% everytime it installs a ile comes out an error. i keep on ''esc'' on every file thats been installed. i remember that i was writing the cd key on the installin cd heavily with a pen. and it makes marks on the bottom. would that cause some files to corrupt and make these errors? do i need to get a rregular cd without anymarks?

Member Avatar for JANINE

now i am on 7%. from 3-7% everytime it installs a ile comes out an error. i keep on ''esc'' on every file thats been installed. i remember that i was writing the cd key on the installin cd heavily with a pen. and it makes marks on the bottom. would that cause some files to corrupt and make these errors? do i need to get a rregular cd without anymarks?

quite possible that you have damaged the disx by pressing too hard on it with the pen you were using. go soft on cds when writing on em.;)

try also getting an internal hdd thats bigger and install xp on that. 8000mb is way too small in this day n age

Member Avatar for kaiking328

i got the external harddrive ith 60gb yesterday but its using usb. but during the installation, it doesnt react. so i couldnt install the window in the external harddrive.

Member Avatar for jwenting

nah, CDRs cost pennies :evil:

Member Avatar for kc0arf

Hello,

Just some thoughts --

* If your computer came installed with Windows 98, unless you upgraded the RAM significantly, I doubt that you will get XP to run on it. Take DLH's advice and ensure the system is recent enough to run XP.

* STOP! Get the data off of the hard drive. You are quickly going down the path of losing it all. I certainly hope you backed it up before you started this quest

* 8 GB is fine for a C: partition. It might feel tight at home, but there are a lot of computers out there in the business world that need about 4 - 6 GB for their programs, and the rest of the data sits on a server.

Christian

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