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Can't Install XP

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9 replies

by tmiller3

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I formatted my drive. Then, using a w98 boot disk to start the comupter, I try installing XP with the CD via e:\i386\winnt. It does the "dos" portion completely and then says it needs to reboot. When it reboots it says "No Operating System". I'mnot sure what file it wants to see when it boots, but XP does copy many many files to my drive. I tried Windows 2000 also with exactly the same results. Can anyone help please?

9 replies

by drb63

Instead of creating the partition and formatting the drive with a Win98 boot disk, set your BIOS to boot to the CD-ROM drive, insert the XP CD and let the installation start from the CD drive.

by cdue

Make sure you have got the file sys.com on the boot floppy and boot on the floppy: Then enter the command as shown:

sys c:

This will transfer the necessary files from the boot disk to the harddrive so you may start from it. Then redo the dos based install for XP and you should be good to go

by bazz00

This is because your primary partion is not set to be active thus the system does not know where to look for the system files upon reboot.

First I would go into the system BIOS and enable/cahnge the system boot sequence to boot from CD Rom as thefirst device. To enable you to boot straight form the CD.

If this does not work then boot using the Win98 boot disk and at the command line type fdisk. See if there are any partitions or logical drives on the hdd. If you have a primary partionthen make sure that it is marked as active. If not create a primary partion and mark it as active.

Once this is done then run e:/i386/winnt and start the install. Once the system files have been copied over onto the hard disk and the machine reboots, now the machine will know to boot to the primary partition because that is where the system files are.

Hope that this helps out!!

by tmiller3

#4 is the winner :). I used FDisk to partition in the first place. I didn't know that I had to specifically make it active when I only defined one partition. But sure enough, it was not active, and making it active solved my problems.
Thank you very much.

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