Major Problem, Desperate for Help!

[thefish8]

My computer will not install 98 or XP. I had it on dual boot originally and I could not get into XP for some reason. I decided to reformat and now I can't install either. I have no idea whether the issue is with the hard drive or the motherboard. When I tried to install XP I got a acpi.sys error if that means anything. When I tried to install 98 I got a message that said NTFS.SYS file was corrupt or user.exe could not run. I don't know what either of these mean and I have never encountered anything like this before. Please, please help me. I would appreciate any information anyone can give me.

My System
AMD Athlon XP 1800
20 gig WD Hard Drive
the mobo is whatever I got at the XP givaway so its an MSI something
MSI geforce2 mx vid card

Thanks for anyone who helps.

 

[Insidious]

It sounds like the format went Kablooie!

Windows98 cannot operate under NTFS so that might be the problem with the 98 install.

try booting to a windows98 startup disk. Then use fdisk to reformat and make the primary partition active for a 98 install.


for an XP install, boot to the XP CD and tell it to reformat the HD for you.



edit: when you decided to re-format, how did you do it?

 

[readysetgo]

I had a different but parallel problem a couple of weekends ago with a mate's computer. We couldn't get the restoration process to complete. It always hung up at 47%. The solution was simple.

Here is what we did:

1) We removed the partitions on his hard drive (if you have a dual-boot system I assume you have at least 2 partitions)
2) We created on C: partition
3) Tried restoration again and was successful.

I suggest you try the same. Remove the partitions on your HDD using the fdisk utility. Create only a C: partition and start the installation process again. It should work if your HDD isn't defective.

CHEERS!

 

[bacillus]

if your xp install is NTFS then you can also blitz it using fdisk & treating the partition as non dos!

 

[thefish8]

I had it partitioned but I did fdisk and it still gives me the same errors. These responses help but I have tried them out already.

 

[thefish8]

I reformatted in dos "reformat c:". I don't think I could let XP reformat because it couldn't launch XP installation. Thanks.

 

[Saltin]

You cant use FDISK to blow away NTFS partitions.
Download DELPART and add it to your boot floppy.

 

[bacillus]

suggest you start from scratch by doing a low level format of the hdd using Data Lifeguard Tools .

 

[thefish8]

Is this problem for sure a hard drive issue?