Netbook windows XP reinstall failing. "A disk read error occurred".

[Officer Vimes]

Im trying to reinstall with a bootable usb drive windows XP on an old compaq mini. The netbook seemed to ignore the boot order since it booted to the installed OS every time, so I tried starting from the setup.exe once in the usb folder. It takes me to the setup wizard for win XP with the Update or New install options. I choose new install and the OS reboots to a OS selection screen, and when I choose Install Windows XP it immediatly sends me to the "A disk read error occurred" error screen.

The weird thing is that even without the usb drive plugged in, every time I turn on the netbook it sends me to the OS select screen I described previously.

 

[BrianVS]

I've had problems using USB devices for Windows XP installs- once XP starts running setup, it switches over to using its own drivers. XP out of the box does not have the USB drivers needed to continue running... I have a USB Floppy which i used for "extra drivers" for a SATA drive. Initially XP found it in preliminary stages, but as it got farther along, using it's own drivers- it could no longer access the USB device.

Not sure if this was your problem. My solution was to use a third party package (free) to incorporate the required drivers into the XP install disk, create a new ISO CD.

 

[Officer Vimes]

I ended up using a usb disc reader and ot worked flawlessly. I think you are right tho im selectong your answer.