Installing XP on a formatted 98 box

**Hex** · August 27th, 2003, 22:58 PM

Hey guys,

I need a bit of help installing xp on a formatted 98 box. I bought it used from one of those computer outlets. When I start it, it goes thru the 98 boot screen, does the diagnostics, then brings me to a dos prompt. The XP cd won't autorun, when I select "setup" off the xp disk, it tells me that command can't be run in dos mode. So what am I doing wrong here?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Hex

**Reverend** · August 27th, 2003, 23:55 PM

Are the CDROM drivers loaded before you get to the dos prompt?

What directory are you trying to access via dos.If the CDROM drivers are not loaded you won't be able to run setup.exe from the XP CD.

Also,check in the BIOS and make sure "1st Boot Device" is set to CDROM,not floppy.(that setting should be in Advanced BIOS features or similar).

If you still have no luck booting from the CD,set the "Ist Boot Device" back to Floppy and run setup from a set of Boot Disks,which you can downloaded from here.

BTW,i'm presuming you only want to run XP on that machine,and not a 98/XP dual boot.

**Hex** · August 30th, 2003, 22:23 PM

Rev,

Thanks for thr reply and sorry for the late reply on my part (went ou of town for a bit). I'll give that a try as soon as I get home and report on the results. That looks like the right stuff I was looking for!

Thanks again,

Hex

**Hex** · August 31st, 2003, 19:39 PM

Ok,

I've searched every bios setting and don't see anywhere to set the primary boot device. I go the the setup disks, and once the last one loads, I get the blue screen of death giving me an unmountable drive error. I can see the drive in the bios and c drive though. Is this a fat32/ntfs thing, do I have to crack open the box and see whats going on inside? Any help is very appriciated!

Thanks,
Hex

**Reverend** · August 31st, 2003, 21:07 PM

OK,
Download a 98 boot disk from here, when its downloaded,pop in a blank floppy and run the .exe.This will write all the boot files to the floppy.

Now start the 98 machine and put the boot floppy in,choose boot into command prompt with CD-ROM support.You should now get an A> prompt.(if you don't get the A> prompt,type in A: )

At the A:\> prompt type in format c: (This will wipe all data from the C: drive.)

When the format is complete pop in the XP CD and type d:\:setup and hit enter. The XP setup program should now run.

**ViperSnake** · September 1st, 2003, 00:50 AM

problem: Wrong Command: In XP the setup.exe is the windows autorun. the real commands are the following:

Code:

d:
cd i386
winnt.exe

**Hex** · September 1st, 2003, 04:17 AM

Hey guys,

Alright. Somethings not right on this box. This is whats happening:

I booted from the 98 boot disk, formatted the c drive, attempted setupsetup.exe, which still says, "This program cannot be run in DOS mode." I then attempt browsing into the i386 folder and it tells me "Invalid directory". There's 4 diffrent directories I can see on the XP disk, and I can't browse to any of them. I've tried from inside and outside of the d directory the following:

cd d:\i386\winnt.exe
cd d:\I386\winnt.exe
cd d:\i386
cd d:\I386
cd i386
cd I386

...plus similar variations to the other directories (docs,support and valueadd) in the XP disk. Just to make sure I was doing this right I browsed around thru the i386 directory with no problem on my other box, so with that I'm pretty sure that the xp install cd is fine.

I decided to try the start up disks again on the fresh format, and got an error while reading the 4th floppy that cpqarray.sys is damaged or corrupted. I guess this is good this is happening so I can finally get my hands dirty with a format/reinstall of this nature, but man, this ones a pain. I browsed the 4th floppy and saw cpqarray.sys there so I'll reload the data onto those start up disks and try again.

This box I'm trying to install xp on is an old IBM that was used in the workplace networked thru alot of other computers. Due to that, do you think theres something inside I need to change? I thought mabey it was to old for xp, but I don't think that would explain why I get "Invalid directory" when I'm just browsing the contents of the cd. Is it possible that whatever driver the cdom is using is letting it read the contents of the cd, but no more than that? Hmm, I don't know. I'll let you guys know any updates, and thanks to the both of you for all your help!

Hex

**Hex** · September 1st, 2003, 04:23 AM

Whoa, get this...

Right after that post, I popped a Neverwinter Nights cd in the drive to see if it can browse directories in there and it can! So would you think that means this box can't run XP? I have a copy of Mandrake 9.1 on the way in the mail so mabey I'll give that one a shot. I'm still open to any ideas you guys may have, but I think that's a pretty big red flag there. Anyways, thanks again.

Hex

**Big Booger** · September 1st, 2003, 05:41 AM

You may have a corrupt XP CD. Send it back to microsoft for a replacement.

**Hex** · September 1st, 2003, 18:26 PM

I got XP from the guy with an eye patch down by the docks. I think I'm out of luck on that one

Hex

**egghead** · September 1st, 2003, 22:04 PM

if your computer is sloower than a 400mhz and has less than 64 megs of ram it will be a waste of time because xp will be too slow to run,

if you are trying to run xp setup from dos you need to run smartdrv.exe from the win98 disc or you can find it from google.

smartdrive enabled dma made and its the only way to browse the i386 folder because of the 1000's of files that are in this folder.

after you run smartdrive you will be able to check the directory for winnt.exe
if you are using a windows 98 boot disc it creates a compressed folder that is d: and your cd drives becomes drive e:

if your computer does not meet the specs you are better to stay with 98

if your computer is correct and you have a retail MS winxp cd you will need to replace your cd drive with a newer one that can read 32 bit drivers.

you should have the option to boot of cd in your bios and if the cd does not boot you will need to place a 32x or higher cdrom to boot the disc

not all cdrom drives are bootable and usually all 32x drives and higher have the abililty to boot from cd.

the commands you want are as follows:
if your cd is on d or e you can change the letter:

e:
cd\i386
winnt

this should start the blue loading screen to install xp

be warned that on my 1.7 ghz p4 it takes min of 45 miniutes to get the thing installed and longer to install the drivers

e:

**Hex** · September 2nd, 2003, 17:57 PM

Hey Egg,

I did neglect to post that I did add smartdrv.exe to the 98 bootdisk and ran that before trying to browse to the i386, my bad. I've tried all of the above in everyway conceivable. The closest I ever seem to get id the xp boot dsik go thru (I do a fresh format first), then once the last ones done and it's ready to erad the xp disk, it gives me that error about unmountable boot volume in the blue screen of death.

I found a kb article on that at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;297185

that I'm refers to the UDMA controler for the hard disk as once of the steps to troubleshoot. I've already checked the hard disk integrity thru chkdsk /r. I'm going to try mandrake 9.1 tonight and if I get similar problems, I'm going to follow replace the 40-wire cable with an 80-wire UDMA cable to the hard disk controler. I'll let you all know how it goes. Thanks to everyone for all the help!

Hex

**Stripe** · September 2nd, 2003, 18:33 PM

When I start it, it goes thru the 98 boot screen, does the diagnostics, then brings me to a dos prompt

When you say it brings you to a windows 98 screen and then the diagnositcs and then to DOS, are you getting the 98 splash screen? If so, the drive may not be fully formatted. Or are you using the win98 boot disk?

Also, go into the BIOS on the computer and see if you can set the cdrom as the primary boot device. If you can, set the device as primary and boot the pc with the cd in and the boot disk out. The cd should autostart.

Depending on the age of the pc though, you may run into some problems. Older cdroms do not support ATAPI and therefore will not boot. Also, some older MOBO configurations may not support the boot to CDROM. Then, you have the normal hardware requirements of the application.

Regarding the unmountable boot device. Make sure that you have the boot configuration correct in the bios. If you are still getting the error after checking the BIOS, download the harddrive utilities from the manufacturer and use it to format/check the disk for errors.

**Thor** · September 2nd, 2003, 18:50 PM

Originally posted by egghead
if your computer is sloower than a 400mhz and has less than 64 megs of ram it will be a waste of time because xp will be too slow to run,

Heyyyy, I ran XP Pro on a PII 300MHZ with 128 ram just fine. I did up the ram to 256 but, none the less, it did run fine.