XP install on new 60Gb drive - BSOD!!

Hi there.

Apologies if this has been done to death - I found similar threads but not with the answer I need!

Brief history: Acer Aspire A110, added RAM some time ago & installed XP from USB stick following the guide on here. Started getting BSODs of various types suggesting SSD failure, so bought a SAMSUNG HS060HB.

After much swearing, managed to get the drive installed. BIOS picks up the drive correctly. However, every time I try & install XP (from a USB DVD drive - also correctly identified in BIOS) it runs through the 'loading files' part, but as soon as it gets to the 'Windows is starting setup' part I get a STOP error 0x0000007b

Have used Hirens Boot CD to boot and have successfully partitioned and formatted the drive, I've also copied a file from the boot CD to the drive, so I know that it is happy to communicate with it outside the XP install environment. I've even flashed the BIOS to 3309.

Only odd thing I can see is that some system report tools say it's a secondary master, not primary, but it's in as IDE-0 in the BIOS & I'm wondering if it's just the boot CD pretending it's the primary.

I tried a USB install, but I only have a very old XP machine to use the USB multiboot software on and it's not playing - the original USB stick is knackered & the new I have doesn't want to play.

What am I missing?

 

Well that was weird.

Out of desperation I copied all the install files from my XP disk on to a new (16Gb) USB stick, and for good luck I copied on NTLDR & boot ini files from the usb disk I'd made earlier, just on the offchance. This same usb stick had not booted before - it had just hung.

Then I booted into Hiren's Boot CD's mini-XP, & ran setup from the USB drive. I figured it couldn't do any harm as the mini-XP is loaded in a RAM drive just like the normal install would be - there wouldn't be any conflicts.

It started set up, but I left the machine for a few minutes & it was back at the 'install XP' menu. I did see that it had managed to copy a bunch of files over to the hard drive

Arse, I thought, so I rebooted. As it rebooted the USB stick sprang into life and it gave more a slightly more official looking 'install windows xp' menu. I ran it, it went through the usual routine, but this time instead of BSOD it started to copy files from the USB to the hard drive. When it had to reboot I chose the 'continue' option, and as I speak it is currently chugging away with roughly 6 minutes to go!

So, my advice to all is: don't give up, & try everything you can possibly think of

 

Don't leave me hanging - what did it do 6 minutes later? :mrgreen:

 

Well, it did give me a hard time for a couple of reboots, til I realised that the boot.ini was looking at the USB stick and not the hard drive. Once I fixed that it was easy. One netbook, all XP'd up, with iTunes, DivX, Xvid and everything else needed for our upcoming holiday. For a few awful days it looked like we were going to be relying on hotel TV

 

Outstanding! Great job.