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Need help with XP reinstall

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6 replies

by hughesm1

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A friends' machine loaded with XP would not boot in any mode; each time would come up with the blue screen of death "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_DRIVE".

I tried reinstalling XP on this machine, and received this fatal error at 39% complete:

SXS.DLL: Syntax Error in manifest or policy file "F:\I386\asms\6000\MSFT\WINDOWS\COMMON\CONTROLS\CONTROLS.MAN on line 0. Installation failed: F:\I386\asms.
Error msg. Manifest Parse error; Invalid at the top level of the document.

I tried to install XP again, but each time I would get the same fatal error message.

Anyone know what's causing this or am I doing something wrong?

6 replies

by hughesm1

Before I installed XP (Prof.), I did a complete format of the drive (at least the C partition) to clear the unmountable boot drive error. The installation was from CD on a standalone machine.

by mrjay67

I ran across a problem on W2K when a Zip Drive was installed it changed some boot services to use different drivers or something to that effect. We had to go into recovery console and switch back to the standard ideatapi services instead of the ones the ZIP was trying to use. Its been awhile so i dont rem the service names exactly. The initial problem could have been similar. Its possible something usually mundane changed something that caused it to be unable to boot. As for the reload issueid have to go with the previous answer and check microsoft's support. You might make sure something in BIOS isnt hanging it up though if you havent already. Might make sure your copy of XP files are good. If comming off CD you might try copying straigt to hard drive and then trying to install from HDD. To make sure something isn't being lost in transfer between drives.

just my 2 cents

Jason

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