Need help with a install of OS

colt1911

colt1911

New Member
I have a friend who brought me her PC with a virus on it . It would only just keep restarting over and over again. She lost her restore disc and has bought a new copy of XP Home . No matter what I do I can't get the software to install. It formats and then starts to copy the drivers and files to the hard driver, during this process it will stop several times and say a certain file could not be copied to the drive. I've tried several times but no luck and it is never the same file. This is an Emachines pc and I'm at a total loss . Please help .
 
Ooooh so You want some fun too with eMachines? :P How do you know that there was "any" virus to start with? There are other causes like possible hardwares failures in progress that will see this. Have you listened to the drive for any clicking sounds? That would be read/write heads failing. A flaky bios or something overheating would start to see problems with drive controllers. Make sure the hard drive's jumper is set to cable select.
 
All I know is what she told me . I don't hear any clicking sounds . I have replaced all cables and even tried to reformat another spare drive that I have extra. I've reset the cmos and changed the battery. I've also tried different DVD rom's still no luck. Is there anything else short of putting a bullet in it that I can try?Funny thing is that I can install windows 98 on it no problem it just want take xp home which is what the pc came with from the factory.
 
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Your friend could have bought a bad disk? That would be one possible reason why the installation failed. But look over the disk for any scratches or smear marks from handling. Aren't those eMachines wonderful to work with? :mad: grrr! :P

If your friend hadn't lost the original recovery disk she could have contected their support with the serial number and customer information. They would then provide a link for downloading disk images for burn to cd-rs. The XP installer on the new disk should be easier then putting 98 on.
 
colt1911 said:
I have a friend who brought me her PC with a virus on it . It would only just keep restarting over and over again. She lost her restore disc and has bought a new copy of XP Home . No matter what I do I can't get the software to install. It formats and then starts to copy the drivers and files to the hard driver, during this process it will stop several times and say a certain file could not be copied to the drive. I've tried several times but no luck and it is never the same file. This is an Emachines pc and I'm at a total loss . Please help .
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I've found out that for the most part when seeing this happen, 9 times out of ten, its a memory issue. If the system has more than 1 stick of memory, take one out and try installing again with the other stick. If the same thing happens, put the one back in and take the other one out. If it still happens, download a program called "memtest86" and run it on your installed memory. Most likely both sticks of memory are bad.
 
It could be alot of things really, a memory issue or a CD rom reading problem sounds more like it, you could try the ram like johnb35 said or swap the cd rom out
 
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I don't have another stick of memory to try and I 've changed the cd rom out twice. The disc doesn't seem to be bad it works fine on my pc and I eveen tried to install my xp pro on it. I'm trying to talk her in to letting me build her a new pc
 
PC2100 is DDR266, if you have a DDR 333 or 400 it will run at 266, but not if it just plain sdram PC133 it wont fit. Or did you mean that you only had DDR and it uses Sdram
 
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I'm not surprised to hear that at all since she brought you an older prebuilt system where you had the two options of 256mb or 512mb for memory. Flaky memory will cause problems mainly while running programs more then finishing the installation of Windows or even softwares.

Is that a WD drive or Seagate seen there if you have looked at it? They generally run WD drives set to cable select on the end of the primary ide cable. Take a look to see if that is how it is set. An old flat ribbon cable would be the more likely problem then the dirve if the jumper is set correctly. I've run into enough of the flat to say Antec Cobra round only please!
 
PC eye said:
Is that a WD drive or Seagate seen there if you have looked at it? They generally run WD drives set to cable select on the end of the primary ide cable. Take a look to see if that is how it is set. An old flat ribbon cable would be the more likely problem then the dirve if the jumper is set correctly. I've run into enough of the flat to say Antec Cobra round only please!
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Dont start people changing things around, the computer started restarting on her now he cant install windows, there was nothing said about any hardware changes made before this started. So the computer ran fine with it set up the way it is! The jumpers didnt jump on other pins by there self or the cookie monster ate up the IDE cables.
Is more than likely a ram issue since he swaped the cd-rom out.
 
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PC eye said:
Is that a WD drive or Seagate seen there if you have looked at it? They generally run WD drives set to cable select on the end of the primary ide cable.
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And another thing, where do you get this, I,ve used W/D for years and always set them to master on the primary IDE if its the main drive and never had a problem, (Show me anywhere this is a big issue). Cable select has always been more buggie than setting a drive to master or slave
 
StrangleHold said:
And another thing, where do you get this, I,ve used W/D for years and always set them to master on the primary IDE if its the main drive and never had a problem, (Show me anywhere this is a big issue). Cable select has always been more buggie than setting a drive to master or slave
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You've used them in custom builds not eMachines apparently! :rolleyes: You pull a drive out of them and what do you see? "cable select"! And that's no surprise since all they do when going to swap out a drive for upgrade or replacement is slap another one without fuss. Dirve are shipped set that way. Seagate probably won't have a jumper on but in the box with it.
 
Well lets say that true for a moment in time about weither it matters if it is cable select or master, do you belive his jumper wiggled itself off to another pin
 
StrangleHold said:
Well lets say that true for a moment in time about weither it matters if it is cable select or master, do you belive his jumper wiggled itself off to another pin
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Now you are getting ridiculous. :rolleyes: Besides checking the jumper setting another to try is simply pressing on the connector to insure that is in and not pulled out "just enough" so as to not make the proper contact. You may want to review one thread on how easy that can happen. :P Believe me it's good one! http://www.computerforum.com/80790-bad-board-simply-need-replug.html
 
eMachines have the same chipsets as any other computer so that kills the jumper thought you have, just because they set them at the factory with cable select does not mean they wont run set to slave and master.
 
Ok guys, PC EYE and Stranglehold. All I know is that it sounds like a memory issue to me. My daughters computer did the very same thing. Hers started screwing up so I decided to reinstall windows. I formatted, repartitioned, and started to install and it kept saying couldn't copy misc files. Tried a different copy of install cd with same issue, switched out cdrom drive with same issue. Finally, I downloaded Memtest and ran it and low and behold, memory errors appeared as soon as I started running it. So I borrowed a stick of my machine and put it in hers, Windows finally installed without a glitch. If i was a betting man, I would place my bet on bad memory but until he either runs memtest or tries different memory, we won't know what the issue could be.

And another thing.... why do you two always have to argue...lol :P
 
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