Need help installing Windows XP - Please Help

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bam7613

New Member
Here's my problem. I have a Dell Dimension XPS R450 from like 1998. I know its a 12 yr old computer but its just been collecting dust so i want to try and get it up and running again. Before....my computer wouldnt even detect an Operating System it would always give "Operating System Not Found" on the black screen. So i went to Best Buy and bought a brand new PATA Western Digital Caviar Blue 320 GB Hard Drive because i knew for a fact that the original one was corrupt. So i installed the new hard drive and POST detected it and what not. So i install Windows 98 and use the Universal Product Key because at first i could not find my XP CD-ROM. Then i go to upgrade Windows 98 to XP home edition after i had found it finally. Now when i go to install it and click the Upgrade (Recommended) installation type it says that i dont have enough disk space which is weird cause i just got a new HDD with 320GB which is more than enough space. Anyway, i bypass it somehow and it restarts and goes to the Windows Setup (blue screen) to start installing XP. i get it to format the HDD and it takes forever but it eventually finishes. Then it restarts again to finish the setup i guess and it just goes to a blank black screen, and it stays like that for as long as i let it. i dont know what the problem may be. Anyone know what to do????

Thanks
 
thats is a strange error, have you tried installing a fresh xp, not through 98... maybe during the upgrade you were trying to install it on a smaller partition
 
TechShark said:
Why not do a clean install of XP, instead of upgrading from 98?
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I couldnt find my XP CD at first, so i stuck with what i had laying around and 98 was it. i eventually ended up finding the XP CD after searching for it. So then i figured i should just upgrade to it. And i think i have the option to choose New Installation (which is same as clean install) from the upgrade/install option menu on 98.
 
it may be because you are formatting the drive..... if it moves the upgrade files onto the hdd when upgrading, you delete them when you format, it is probably loading the setup files into ram, and when you restart it has nothing to load
 
mtb211 said:
thats is a strange error, have you tried installing a fresh xp, not through 98... maybe during the upgrade you were trying to install it on a smaller partition
Click to expand...

Im really new to this stuff and im no expert at it, but id say that i know a little more than the average person. But I think i have tried clean installing XP but it does the same thing. I even did the step where you choose to repartition or format the hdd to FAT or NTFS. I chose the NTFS (Quick) selection because it had WAY more disk space than needed which i thought would fix the problem of not having enough if i tried FAT. It formatted it, then copied or installed the certain files it needed which took forever. Then it gave a message that said computer will restart and continue setup, i still kept the XP CD in CD-ROM Drive, but after BIOS and POST it goes to the message press any key to setup from CD.... which i already did once and it said to ignore it the second time, so i ignored it a for literally like 2 seconds it showed windows xp home edition and another selection but i couldnt read it...thats how fast it went by. Anyway, after that it stays at the blank black screen.
 
fohawk17 said:
it may be because you are formatting the drive..... if it moves the upgrade files onto the hdd when upgrading, you delete them when you format, it is probably loading the setup files into ram, and when you restart it has nothing to load
Click to expand...

You are probably right. idk anything advanced like some of you guys on here do. but ive gotten a few problems fixed by myself and ive gotten this far and close to making my computer come alive again. i know that if i can get this fixed i'll be up and running again. to just give up would suck, but maybe i can keep on trying and taking advice from here.
 
You are probably having a few problems. One is the bios on that board might not even recognize the full size of the harddrive, does it show up in the bios the right size. The second is trying to upgrade from, 98 which probably didnt see the full size of the drive, plus installed in FAT32.

Your best bet would be to boot to the XP cd, delete the partition, create a new one and do a clean install in NTFS. Plus if your bios is limited and XP cant see the full size of the drive you might need to use a bios overlay.
 
StrangleHold said:
You are probably having a few problems. One is the bios on that board might not even recognize the full size of the harddrive, does it show up in the bios the right size. The second is trying to upgrade from, 98 which probably didnt see the full size of the drive, plus installed in FAT32.

Your best bet would be to boot to the XP cd, delete the partition, create a new one and do a clean install in NTFS. Plus if your bios is limited and XP cant see the full size of the drive you might need to use a bios overlay.
Click to expand...

Alright, i will try that. i need all possible solutions i can get. Thanks
 
Before you even think about installing XP, how much system memory is installed? If you don't have at least 512mb don't do it. With a system that old your better off staying with 98 if you can get it installed.
 
As for your hard drive capacity issues, Windows XP pre SP3 wouldn't recognize anything larger than 137 GBs. I don't even want to imagine what Windows 98 will support.

I wouldn't connect a machine to the Internet running Windows 98--it is no longer supported by Microsoft and susceptible to infection.

Honestly, for a machine that old, you'd be better off looking for a decent Linux distro if you can't get at least Windows XP SP3 up and running.
 
Method9 said:
As for your hard drive capacity issues, Windows XP pre SP3 wouldn't recognize anything larger than 137 GBs.
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Wrong.... SP1 was required to see anything above 137gb, so the original release of XP with no service pack applied had an issue with drives over 137gb limit.
 
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