Computer Repair Forum

traceyangel · Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 2 Location: Melbourne Australia

Hi
im new here and hoping someone with more knowledge than me can help.

My brothers pc (tower 18 months old-250 g hd, NVIDIA nForce4 series motherboard, standard cd drive)was having issues loading xp, some of the files were missing, and looks like his 'friend' deleted some of them somehow.
So, I set about doing a fresh install of windows xp. I reformatted the existing hard drive But upon doing so about 1/3 the way through it stops and then tells me that it cannot copy a certain file, each time its a differing file ! Tried three times to no avail.
I then thought that it may be a hard drive failure, so replaced the sata hard drive, no luck upon trying to reinstall after formatting again, same issue.
The I replaced the cd drive, again same issue.
Then I replaced the cable to hard drive. Again same issue after reformatting each time and fresh install.

Im at the point now where I am fast running out of ideas. Other than now testing the motherboard and am wondering what is the best/quickest way to test the motherboard properly to see if there is an issue there?? I dont want to have to spend lots to see what the issue is on it. There must be an easier way and after trying to use the troubleshoot here which doesnt cover this issue or I cant find it Im stuck guys. Aside from the fact that Ive not come across this issue before I guess that makes me a novice on this one;(

If anyone has had this problem or knows whats going on here Id love and appreciate hearing from you.

This is a terrific site
thanks
cheers
Tracey

Fonz · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 45 Location: Toronto

Hi Tracey,

As per the description that you provided and my experience with computers and installation issues, it seems that the problem is not your computer hardware but the Windows CD. The CD may be scratched although you may not see much of it.

You said that " it cannot copy a certain file, each time its a differing file". When you do a fresh install, if windows is not able to copy (find) a file it either hangs or give you an error message stating what file is missing. Then depending on the type of file, it may also ask you if you want to skip that file or provide another source for it.
If you just reboot and try to reinstall, windows usually remembers how far in the installation it failed and tries to skip the file giving the problem.

Now the solution to your problem is to find another Windows installation CD (the same version as yours) and switch the CD before the problem occurs.
I have already done it and it works!

Cheers.

traceyangel · Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 2 Location: Melbourne Australia

Hi

thanks so much for your reply. I really appreciate it Smile

Well, whilst awaiting comments I decided to try again to reformat and do fresh install win xp... guess what, it finally loaded..
now im faced with the machine not wanting to load or recognize files when i try to install other software. Which after putting a new hard drive in, makes me think two things, one is that its been a software issue all along or the optical drive is not working properly..?? cos its more so from the cd drive that this happens..
OMG.....im ready to tear my hair out..after taking the machine back to my brothers last night to hook it all up, yay..windows is loaded using his original disc/full version. rather than one of mine..yay.
then i try to load the optical keyboard drivers from the disc guess what...it doesnt want to recognize it..????? Good grief.. so then i give up on that one and think, well ill load nero off its disc....aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... only gets 33% through and craps itself and wont load any more telling me that files are wrong/not there blah blah blah AGAIN...now at midnight Im ready to throw the machine through my brothers office window and give up..lol
Even the dog was getting stressed and thought id lost the plot..

okay back to reality, ill change the keyboard over to a usb keyboard, that should fix that temporarily, but as for the machine not copying off discs..well im back to my previous comments about the cd drive..having issues..
why cant someone do therapy on these machines..or maybe its one of those AMD athalon issues that others tell me 'dont happen'..lol
any help will be greatly appreciated ....again !! Sad

((

PS. i have noted that the pc seems okay to download some programs off the net but not from the cds..maybe thats not an issue ..??

cheers
Tracey

Fonz · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 45 Location: Toronto

Hi Tracey,

The description that you gave tend to put the blame on the CD drive. However it might be caused by a bad driver during the installation or again CDs with scratches or something of that order.

To find out what is the cause of all your trouble I can suggest you to try to bypass windows and use a LINUX bootable CD. You will have to download it and burn it on a CD ( http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/knoppix/ scroll down and click on "KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso" to start downloading the file), please burn the CD on another computer that you know works fine.

Then place that CD in your brother's computer and restart it. It should start loading LINUX (don't worry it will not touch your windows installation). If it does not load, please make sure that in your BIOS, the CD drive has booting priority on HDD.

If LINUX is able to boot fully, then your problem is software related, if not, then it is probably your CD drive.

Cheers.

mithra · Joined: 06 Sep 2010 Posts: 491

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