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…And Windows lives to frustrate another life

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*I compress my hard drive, and cannot boot. So, I decompress everything.
*Something else happened, so I try to install XP Pro SP2.
*XP Pro SP2 has a known USB driver installation problem (which would stall my installation), so I try XP Home SP1.
*XP Home SP1 (upgrade) refuses to boot, so I get some setup discs for it.
*As soon as it asks for the XP SP1 CD, I get the BSOD for 0x000000f7 (faulty hardware, memory, or motherboard), so I cycle out RAM sticks until I find the culprit.
*Getting past setup discs, loading the CD, EULA, and precisely after formating I get BSOD stop error 0xc00000145 (Application error) saying that the application failed to initialize properly (0x0000006).

So, now, as you can probably tell, I’m quite fed up with my computer, and tired of using my alternate PC for everything.

If you can give me any advice for fixing this all, once and for all (install XP home or pro and be able to run it), I’d be willing to sex you. Well, not really, but I would really appreciate it.

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Clarifications

In reply to …And Windows lives to frustrate another life

Clarifications

Well it would help to know

In reply to …And Windows lives to frustrate another life

The Brand & Model of the NB.

And what OS was originally installed on it.

Personally I’m not sure than Known Bugs with USB Ports would prevent the installation of XP SP2 but you would most defiantly have to find the USB Drivers and install them after XP SP2 was installed.

When you tried installing Home SP1 did you first wipe the HDD with a utility that writes zero’s to every sector of the drive so that you would have a clean and what appeared to be new HDD present when you tried installing Home? If not you can get a copy of Boot & nuke here to clean the drive so that everything is gone of it.

http://tinyurl.com/4rfur

Col

How the heck?

In reply to Well it would help to know

Well, with more information on that USB driver complication, see this arcticle which describes my symptoms exactly:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;815319&Product=winxp

Well, in waiting for a reply yesterday, I decided to try another installation (like the 8th time, so it was hopeless, but there was nothing on TV). This time, magically, it works (XP Pro SP2). So, I’m not really sure what happened at all. I don’t really care how it worked either. All I really care about now is that it’s working.

No, actually, I never wiped the the hard drive (I was unsure if I had backed up everything, and if I hadn’t I wanted to be able to possibly recover some of the files). I simply installed over the old OS (XP Pro SP2) every time I tried. In failed attempts, I tried a repair install. This time I simply wrote over it, leaving my old cluttered file structure in tact. So, I install it again (yes, I installed Pro SP2 twice last night, successfuly). This time, performing a quick format (still wanting to be able to have a chance to recover files).

The only thing I can guess to be the reason it magically worked this time, is maybe I forgot which RAM stick I was to take out.

Though, I find it awkward that once the OS is installed, the RAM works perfectly fine.

UM if you did a [i]Quick Format[/i] you wiped the HDD

In reply to How the heck?

And lost the ability to save any data that may not have been backed up.

Col

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