Windows Having problems installing windows (Problem Solved)

I recently traded my laptop for a dual Xenon 2.4ghz server. NOw my problem is i cant get windows to install. Ive treid winxp home winxp pro and win200. Only version that works is win server 2003. Can somone help me as i really want xp pro

 

What happens when you try to install the other OS's?

 

it format then install, retsrts and when it goes to configure it gives an error about something cant be configured. ic ant remeber exaclty what it is

 

It could be because WS2k3 is designed for dual or quadrouple processors, so it might be that non-server versions do not support it, check out the MS website.

 

well i was looking at the compatability chart on the mother board wesbite and it says it supports xp pro but i cant get it to work...do i have to have sp1 or sp2 streamlined into my install disc

 

That is another possibility. What you can do is download nlite, which is a program where you can customise windows, using your existing copy on windows. There is a feature to add service packs to the disk. (You'll have to burn an ISO of the customised XP)

 

soo you are saying download sp2 and streamline it into my xp pro cd

 

It would be very helpful if you could get the exact text of the error message.

 

Yes, its worth a try.

 

ill try to slipstream but if that doesnt work ill tell you the exact error msg

 

ok i tried using nlite to slipsteam the drivers and sp2 but after it installs then reboots to configure everything with the gui well i get the a blue screen before can configure and it says unmountable boot device. what is that

 

I've had recent issues with installing win2k on a fairly old-ish computer. It would install and run for a bit, then give a permanent innaccessible_boot_device blue screen on loading up. If I then ran a scandisk using the win2k cd recovery console, it always brought up three errors that were fixed (what they were, I've no idea). After a few hours-worth of trying to figure it out, I ghosted the install onto another hdd and it appears to be fine. Even though SMART was enabled for the drive in bios and it reported the drive as ok, it would seem that it wasn't. So, it may be worth trying to install on a different hdd.

 

ok here is the exact error

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

blah blah blah if ytou installed new hardware blah blah blah

***STOP: 0X000000ED (0C86373C08, 0XC000185, 0X00000000, 0X00000000)


I have treid a diff hdd and it does the same..funny thign is win2003 server works fine but thats not what i want

 

What type of drives are they? IDE, SATA, SCSI? Also, are you trying to install to a RAID setup?

 

ide drives and no raid

 

any ideas

 

The ide channel doesn't need drivers loaded? you know when it says to install a device from floppy press f6 or words to that effect. Is it on a funky chipset as apposed to just being part of the south bridge?

 

You only need to install drivers if you have a RAID controller. My guess is that something is wrong with the actual operating system that you're installing, because I know that XP Pro supports dual processor configurations.

 

Adding to the last post, you can get your xp pro disc cleaned professionally. CompUSA does provide this service and they do a mighty good job at it.

I had a totally messed up Christmas CD that couldn't play any of the tracks on any audio player and had it professionally cleaned from CompUSA and it's good as new. It's cheap and you get like 20 cd's done for like $20 bucks, $1 for each cd.

 

no my cd is good it will install on my other machine