HD wiped clean

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MichaelWLee

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I came into possesion of an older but perfectly good computer, except that the hard drive was completely raw. I was able to run setup for win xp pro ,so the os is installed with ntfs on one partition. But that`s all.
After the computer boots an error message that the os failed to load appears.
Is it possible to install the missing programs to start up windows? Is there a step by step how to ,on programing a hard drive?
 
what is the error you are receiving? ntldr not found? after the error does the operating system run ok? how many hard disk are installed? and what are the partitions set up on each one?
and list your computer specs, all of them.

including processor, hard disk, ect. anything that will help me figure out what you are doing on what machine.

you might not be doing anything wrong, it could be a hardware incompatabilty.
 
The error message on the screen is " Failure to load Operating System". That`s where everything stops, nothing happens after that. I have two other hard drives I put in and they both work fine. This is not a problem with the computer.The problem is the hard drive is not fully programed. It takes more than just an os for it to run. I need to know what those programs are , and how to install them.
 
Boot to dos with a bootable floppy. Run fdisk and see how many partitions there are.

Your best bet is to clear them out, create a new partition and start over. If you tried to install the OS without prepping the hard drive, and it was used, then you don't know what was on it before.

So clear old partitions, make 1 new one using 100% of drive, format, install OS.
 
all it takes to run a computer is an OS, there are no extra programs that need to be installed, the winxp install cd does it all
 
Well I`ve run the setup about twenty times and each time I delete the partition and setup reformats the drive ,creates a single partition on 100% of the drive , copies the installation files,reboots and that`s when the failed to load operating system error appears. Then it wants to reboot and start the same thing over again.
It has to be the disk programimg. I tried two other hard drives ( one at a time) in the computer and they both work fine.
Something is stopping setup from going through with the final installation process.
 
Sounds like there might be an issue with copying the needed files over. Have you tried the 5 disk XP method? make the 5 XP boot disks and install that way?

Also, if it's not a legit copy of XP (kazaa or whatever) that could be your issue.
 
oh i see. i think i had a similar problem before. the error is caused either because a memory problem or cd-rom problem. if you can, install a newer (recently manufacturered) cd-rom drive on the computer and try to install winxp with that drive. all you need to do is use winxp CD to set up your partitions and install winxp one of those partitions. no other program is needed like dethangel says. also i think if i remember correctly if you use memory with ECC enabled it causes that problem also. your motherboard's cmos setup might have a option to turn off ECC or you can just take out the memory module and run winxp setup, but problem with that is winxp needs at least 256MB for install i think? try to borrow a cd-rom from someone first.
 
Well, I stand corrected on there being other programing required besides the os. I ended up taking the hd out and put it in an other machine and it installed xp and runs well except that it won`t shut down . It may have been the cd rom wasn`t compatible. Thank you all for your time and ideas.
 
when you shut down the computer do you get a "it is safe to turn off your computer" screen? i think older motherboards (or power supplies?) dont support that feature. it isn't something to worry about. if you are getting lockups, thats a big problem.
 
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