Installing windows XP on a 320gb PATA drive

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
G

Guest

Guest
Hello, Im trying to install windows XP on a new 320GB WD HD that is in an Inspiron 600m. I booted from the DVD/CD drive from the BIOS but the it does nothing, just a black screen, PLS HELP!!
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Is this a full XP cd or a specially branded one? Oftimes stuff like dell cds won' install on other computers. If this is the original inspiron cd, that shouldn't be an issue.

Other ideas. You might have to set the boot order of the drives in the BIOS so that the CD drive is on top, or in other words being checked for bootable media first. This is especially important with CD/DVD drives because they take longer to detect a disk and so the BIOS often hears from them too late and tries to boot from the hard drive.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Its the original windows xp SP3 that came with the Dell Laptop Inspiron 600m Computer.

I have tried the booth order change, on the quick men F12 and on the BIOS complete menu F2 and it does begin to load the disk the DVD/CD drive light is on but the sudently it stops and screen goes black and stays there.

Not sure where to look on the BIOS to see if the HD shows

I have re-installed windows xp on the same computer 3 weeks ago but having a 160GB and everything I described here worked perfectly, but now with the bigger HD it goes to black, could it be that W-XP does not allow this big HD at all?, PLEASE HELP!!

Notice that Im installing this new HD as an internal not external USB HD, dont know what Im doing wrong
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
IDE drive, 4 things to check..
1. Jumper on drive set to master.
2. Drive plugged into the last connection on the cable.
3. Cable plug oriented in correctly. (Red Stripe plugged in closest to the #1 pin if the cable does not have a notch, some do not)
4. Remove any other Hard Disk drives, do the install with only the Hard Drive you want the OS installed on in the system.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well, thanks but there are no cables since its a laptop, no other HDD are in place since there is only room for one, I checked the HDD and no jumpers, the only thing inb place is that in order to fit it into Dell's dock they use like and adaptor than goes directly on the HDD pins and convert them from pins into somthing like a memory card kind of pins I dont know if Im making any sense I could take pics but not sure if I can attach them here
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Now when booting from W-XP Installer DIsc it says:
"Press any key to boot from CD....
A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"

Then press Ctrl+Alt+Del, and the same thing occurs over and over again

Does this mean that my new HDD is bad or that the Windows XP installer CD is the bad one?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well, thanks but there are no cables since its a laptop, no other HDD are in place since there is only room for one, I checked the HDD and no jumpers, the only thing inb place is that in order to fit it into Dell's dock they use like and adaptor than goes directly on the HDD pins and convert them from pins into somthing like a memory card kind of pins I dont know if Im making any sense I could take pics but not sure if I can attach them here
Click to expand...

Whoops, I am sorry about that, I tried to shoot you an answer quickly as I headed out the door this morning. Missed that this is a laptop completely!
It is beginning to sound like a problem with the install disk to me.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It does look a little smudged, let me try cleaning it a bit to see if that works.
Hey guys but are you all sure w-XP will handle a 320GB HDD? Im not an expert so sorry for asking
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Sure. I've got it running on a 640 gig one. The proper cleaning motion for a cd is to wipe it in a straight line from the center outward. If you rub it in circles you can cause it to skip. Also, hold it up to the light and see if there are any spots in the shiny coating which have been scratched away.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It does look a little smudged, let me try cleaning it a bit to see if that works.
Hey guys but are you all sure w-XP will handle a 320GB HDD? Im not an expert so sorry for asking
Click to expand...

yes xp-sp3 can handle that drive, sp2 or earlier on the other hand would only see a portion of the drive but are still able to use them
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ok, I have tried 2 diff W-XP installation CDs making sure they are not scratched and they all stop at the same point, the weird part is that when I try ton install vista it goes right through, but I dont want vista at all, specially in that old computer, what other options do I have? HELP HELP
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Am I better installing DS Linux or another distro? just want to use this computer for the basic e-mail and wef surfing and some document viewing not much like using Excel or VB ny suggestions guys?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If that is what you want, GO FOR LINUX. I have linux mint on (think, think) three computers now, and it is going great. It is based off of ubuntu, but with a nice update manager, a green theme (which I like) and many codecs installed by default, so that you don't have to jump through hoops to play mp3s or flash movies (not that I like flash). It comes with firefox and thunderbird mail client, and I find it very easy to set up. If you have any more questions, just ask :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I dont know if it is the CD. I had this problem with Dell's before. I tried installing xp sp3 onto an IDE 320gb hd, but once it booted off the cd and restarted to get to installing the copied files, it kept displaying the disk read error.

I tried the same hd in a different Dell with a different CD, same thing. Stuck the hd in an HP, tried both CD's that I had before and it worked perfectly. I do not know how or why (might be a coincidence) the Dell's would display that message when the hd is new.

After I had xp installed, I tried sticking it into one of the Dell's and it would still report a disk read error after the Bios screen.... I have yet to figure this one out. But imo, it has something to do with Dell's hardware.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Im using Dell's windows installing CD/DVDs would you recomend that I download windows XP from other source lets say an .iso file and then make a CD/DVD and see if that works?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'm not quite sure about the legality of that. If it is the BIOS setting which aford mentions, that won't help. You could try a linux cd and see if that works, since I'm sure that's legal.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom