Windows Installation

Vir,

First, you say you have deleted and repartitioned the drive. Have you actually done a Format & FDisk on this drive? If so, then did you make a clean boot disk and try running the setup again? The error message you are getting about a corrupted setup (.cab) is indicating that the actual cab files on the installation CD of WIN ME are damaged but I ran into a similar problem trying to install WIN 98 First Edition on a hard drive that had been working somewhat sluggishly prior to the upgrade. What I did was reformat the hard drive and copy the boot disk to the root directory, I then ran a scandisk from DOS and low and behold, the hard drive had so many bad sectors on it, that it was no wonder that the setup could not complete. The harddrive was toast. I then used a different hard drive and had no problem installing WIN98 on it from the same CD. You might try the same thing, reformat & FDisk the drive, run scandisk from a pure DOS prompt and see if it comes up with a bunch of red blocks,(bad clusters) if it does, then you can try to fix the hard drive by slamming it or freezing it or a thousand other possible remedies but with hard drives as cheap as they are these days, I'd buy a new one. Good luck and I hope this helps you out.

If you have wiped the hard drive and the cannot install the OS,you may have a hard drive problem.
Using the FDISK by inserting the boot disk and cd-rom,at the command prompt type in FDISK and Follow the on screen instructions,after the process format the drive and then you want to setup /mbr or setup /s to install the files from the disk.After this process,if you have the full version of WIN ME insert the cd and let the auto run start.
If it's the upgrade then you will have to install Win 98 and then install Win ME.
Use the boot disk to install the master boot records

I can see that the installation cannot be done due to the bad .cab file in the installation CD. Therefore I would suggest you change a new installation CD to install it properly.
Hope this works, Maozy

Vir,

If you are getting a message HARD DISK ERROR then we have all answered your question correctly. You have a bad hard drive! If you have already tried both the CD's that you have and keep getting this error then there is no doubt that the harddrive has failed. They do get damaged and will not allow you to install an OS on them. Please do as we have all suggested and run a scandisk from DOS to verify that the hard drive has failed. If so, and I am sure it has, then you should not have rejected the answers that were given to you. All 3 techs said the same thing basically, hard drive failure!

Good Luck

If set up has detected a corrupt cab file, sound like you may have a cd rom problem, it is not reading the cd correctly. Try cleaning the cd rom drive.

I have read all three of your postings and all the questions and answers.
this is what i suggest you try.
1. make a new boot disk on a clean system.
2. write protect it.
3. boot to the system in question
4. type fdisk /mbr hit f3 key and do it 2 more times and reset the mbr.
5. then fdisk the drive reboot the system then reset the partition then reboot then manually format the drive dont let the os install do it for you.
once the format is done then sys the hdd.
then make a dir call me. copy the cabs from the cd to the hdd then reboot the system and then change dir to the me dir and run setup from their. but before you do that clean the cd its self i explained below how i would do.
6. then take your cd look at the underside if you have some finger prints on it that may cause some read errors try running warm water on the cd then pat it dry with a very soft clothe.
If this does not work drop me and email and i will try to help more.

john

What exactly do you mean by "i have created partitions...deleted...started all over again" .
This is how you should do it . Boot the PC with a startup disk ( make it from another system ). At dos prompt type FDISK . then delete the primary and logical partitions , notice the warning . then recreate the primary and logical partitions . restart the system using the startup disk "with CD ROM support " . On DOS prompt type format c: /s .Format rest of the logical partitions ( without /s ). then change to the CD ROM and type setup . It should work now .....
If you still get the same error then the problem lies with the CD ROM drive you can try cleaning the LENS .

Or you can try to copy the contents of the CD into a folder on the Harddisk then change to that folder and type setup .

Good Luck ....

try to boot in dos and install windows me from dos, i believe you need the full version not the upgrade to be able to do this. If that doesn't help and you don't care if you lose your data, go to fdisk and delete all partitions, reboot with boot disk, make one full partition and reboot with boot disk then type format c:/s to format the drive with system files. After that is done you will need a disk with cdrom driver on it install it then you should be able to install windows me, if that doesn't work install windows 98 and then upgrade to windows me it should work now, If you need a cdrom driver i have one that usually works for dos just email me and i will send it to you

First thing you need to do is verify that your CD reader and/or your instalation CDs are OK. Do this. Start your PC from a WIN98 startup disk. When asked say "with CD support". Wait for system to reach the A: prompt. Look at back of CD for dirtor finger prints. Clean if nessesary with a soft cloth and warm water. Dry the CD. Insert CD in player. When drive light on CD stops blinking type SCANDISK f: (or whatever letter represents your CD drive) If scandisk reports an error you may havebad CD media. Try this same procedure with a CD that you know has been good in past. If you still get error its pointing at a bad CD Player. If you don't get error on this CD but did on your install CD its indicating bad CD media on your install disk. From your discription I suspect it is your CD Drive, not the disks.

I agree with the others who believe that it is your CD rom. We just went through the same thing. My son went on to install Windows Me and started getting all sorts of error messages of corrupt cab files and installation would abort. He than tried Windows 98 and 95 with same results. I went out bought a new CD Rom and the problem was solved instantly.

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