Help LBC format and reinstall XP on his PC

[LongBeachCoupe]

Undying endless thanks to beanor for helping me along the way here...

My computer is in shambles and I need to start fresh

What ive got:1. A portable HD with all my drivers loaded on it, as well as any stuff i dont want to lose.2. A copy on CD of XP Pro

I googled how to format/reinstall windows and Lifehacker's page essentially tells me I need to boot from the CD, so I tried doing so...

I put the cd in the tray, restarted, pressed F12 when it said to, and then selected boot from CD...

It goes to a windows setup blue screen and on the bottom banner it is scrolling thru different things its loading, then it stops.. and sends me to another blue screen that says...

Problem detected, windows shut down to prevent damage...Tech Info*** stop:0x0000007B, 0XF78D2524, 0xC00000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

WTF is going wrong? I got myself all zoned into sitting here for a couple of hours reformatting the drives thru the setup, and I cant do it!

[t321321]

I had a similar problem before. When I would try to reinstall windows during the installation process it would blue screen and then shut off. It was a memory issue for me, but it doesn't look to be the same exact problem that you have right now.

[nnorton44]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103

Check that out.

[PoorManQ45]

7b with XP is a communication issue.

Alot of times if you have an Intel chipset this is caused by the sata operation being set to AHCI. This is not natively supported by XP. It needs to be changed to ATA.

[szh]

Alot of times if you have an Intel chipset this is caused by the sata operation being set to AHCI. This is not natively supported by XP. It needs to be changed to ATA.

Intel provides XP drivers to support AHCI - these are on their web site, as I recall.

Z

[PoorManQ45]

Those drivers are available, but they require a floppy drive or floppy formated USB key.

If you just go into the bios and turn that feature off during installation you can get through it.

You can change the setting in the registry later after installing drivers

[szh]

Those drivers are available, but they require a floppy drive or floppy formated USB key.

If you just go into the bios and turn that feature off during installation you can get through it.

You can change the setting in the registry later after installing drivers

Good points.

But, be aware of this: "Enabling AHCI in a system with Windows Vista already installed will result in a BSoD if SATA was configured in IDE mode during Vista's installation."

I suspect this applies to XP as well.

So, the exact steps may need to be carefully followed. I'd rather provide the drivers up front (USB stick or floppy) and be done with it.

Z

[PoorManQ45]

Vista natively supports AHCI.

XP doesn't.

With XP unless you use F6 drivers you have to set Sata operation to IDE mode.

You can google xp enable AHCI for the basic instructions for XP. It's pretty straight forward.

I personally don't care either way though. I've never seen it make a difference on benchmarks.

[szh]

Vista natively supports AHCI.

Oh, I know. My point was that if you set it up initially as a non-AHCI drive, then don't change the bios to AHCI and re-boot without installing the drivers first.

Z