installing XP help

[blastman]

Hey all,

I'm trying to install XP on an old laptop. I'm using the Samsung recovery cd that came with it. (I've had to copy the cd to a dvd as the cd/dvd drive won't read cd's.)

When I boot to dvd I get a DOS A: prompt. (This seems odd as the machine has no floppy drive...) I've used fdisk and removed the partition and re-created it making it bootable.

I then tried to format it (A:\format C: /s) but I get a "Invalid drive, or format not supported"

I've managed to copy the i386 folder to the c:\ and when I try to run "winnt /s: d:\i386" I get "Could not find a place for a swap file" and I have to exit the xp install.

Does anyone know why I'm unable to format the only drive in this laptop??

Has anyone seen this XP install error before??

I've done the Google thing and the only answers that came up where "format the c:\ again" which isn't very helpful.

Cheers in advance for your help... (If you can!!)

[Spoiler]

The reason you are getting this error is because the machine is trying to use the boot device for the swap file and it needs to be writeable which it is not.

You need to build a boot disk that can use part of the hard drive in your system to write temp file too.

Why doesn't the CD/DVD drive read CDs? Have you tried to boot another machine with your Samsung recovery CD to be sure its good?

[blastman]

cheers for reply,

the drive is old, so I'm guessing that it has dual lazers and the one for the cd has failed. the disks working fine as I've copied the data on to a dvd.

As for your explation for why I get this error, it sounds good.

How would I go about creating a boot disk that can use the hhd, without a floppy drive??

Cheers again.

[veritasffg]

Don't know if this will help - but I know that certain Recovery Boot CDs, such as Hiren's, construct a "RAM Drive" (virtual drive in memory) to write to, just in case the C: Drive is not available for some reason.  Of course, the more RAM you have, the better for that purpose.