UPGRADE FROM 98 TO XP PROBLEMS

[tkelley80906]

i have scraped the job of trying to get an operating system on the computer that i had forgotten the log in password for.now im working with an ibm aptiva 2171 545 .450 megahertz pentium 3 256 mb ram.13 gig harddrive.now my problem is that when i go to download xp it goes thru the part where its getting the files,when it gets to installing the files that is where it is saying it cant read disk or find the drive.i dont understand this since its been getting all the files from the disk.it wont install them though and ive ran the advisor to find any conflicting hardware or software or files and we have gotten rid of everything we can and it still wont install.can anyone help me?right now im running windows 98 first edition.am i missing a step?

[GX1_Man]

Did you format the drive, hopefully with FAT32 file system? Is the CD clean? You could try making a copy of the CD to make sure it is not an error with the CD itself.

[tkelley80906]

how do you format the drive?the cd looks pretty clean im not sure about making a copy ,but i hear that i cant take the cd back since its possible to make a copy of it.

[GX1_Man]

Boot with the CD in the drive. After you get to the license agreement and press F8, choose to delete all of the partitions and then choose to create a partition. When you choose OK, you will be gioven a choice of how to format the drive. Choose FAT32 and then proceed.

Since you sound like you bought a new product, I'll bet the CD is OK.

[tkelley80906]

i dont get the option to delete partitions.it keeps asking for me to insert the cd.now after all this i get an error screen at start up saying an exception has occured.

[GX1_Man]

It sounds like you have hardware issues. What is the history of the machine? Known problems?

[tkelley80906]

im not sure about the machine,got it from work.it seemed to work fine until i went to upgrade to xp.im having all types of problems with it now.it freezes up on me now and it says theres an exception and i have to reboot it.im suprised that it hasnt froze up on me yet.im thinking of going out and just getting a new computer.