Window XP upgrade [Archive]

IndyMichael

08-31-03, 01:55 AM

I bought the XP upgrade, to go from Windows ME to XP, but after 3 tries of it stopping at the same place, and saying it couldn't read the CD, I gave up for the night. It says either I don't have enough memory, which I do, or the CD may be corrupted. What are the chances the CD is bad? I assume they are good. Is there anything I can do, or should I just return it and try another one?

oblio98

08-31-03, 03:11 AM

I had this exact thing happen to me at work. It turned out to be a flakey CD-ROM on the PC. Could not figure it out, as every other CD worked in the drive.

I ended up robbing a CD-ROM out of another computer long enough to do the upgrade.

Weird.............

DVDDAD

09-01-03, 06:14 PM

I had this exact thing happen to me at work. It turned out to be a flakey CD-ROM on the PC. Could not figure it out, as every other CD worked in the drive.

I ended up robbing a CD-ROM out of another computer long enough to do the upgrade.

Weird.............

Same exact thing top me too. Swapped out the CD-ROM drive and the install completed without error. There must be something on the XP install CD that older CD-ROM drives had trouble reading. Give it a try & report back.

RichW

09-01-03, 07:24 PM

Another possible work-around...

Do you have enough hard disk space to copy the files from the CD to a folder on the Hard drive? And if so, are you able to copy them to the hard drive?

If you can do that, try to the install from the hard drive instead. I have done this with many Win2K systems. I don't know if it is possible to do with XP, but I don't know why it wouldn't work.

DVDDAD

09-02-03, 09:13 AM

Another possible work-around...

Do you have enough hard disk space to copy the files from the CD to a folder on the Hard drive? And if so, are you able to copy them to the hard drive?

If you can do that, try to the install from the hard drive instead. I have done this with many Win2K systems. I don't know if it is possible to do with XP, but I don't know why it wouldn't work.

I tried that, but it didn'y work either. If the CD-ROM can't read the entire CD, it can't copy all the files either. Swap out the CD-ROM drive and you shouldn't have any problems.

IndyMichael

09-03-03, 01:26 PM

I returned the XP Cd and got another one. It does the same thing. I don't see a way to copy the CD to the HD, to try that, but then again, I know about as much about computers as I do cars, and that's when you start them, they should work. If they don't, uh oh. If anyone could let me know how to get the CD on the HD, I'd appreciate it. Oh, and I have a laptop, so I don't know how easy it would be to swap out the CD drive. It is odd that it works for everything else, but not for the XP CD.

DVDDAD

09-03-03, 02:27 PM

I returned the XP Cd and got another one. It does the same thing. I don't see a way to copy the CD to the HD, to try that, but then again, I know about as much about computers as I do cars, and that's when you start them, they should work. If they don't, uh oh. If anyone could let me know how to get the CD on the HD, I'd appreciate it. Oh, and I have a laptop, so I don't know how easy it would be to swap out the CD drive. It is odd that it works for everything else, but not for the XP CD.

Didn't know that you had a laptop, so swapping out the CD-ROM drive wouldn't be as easy as with a desktop, but it still could be done. How about borrowing a friend's USB external CD-R or CD-RW Drive? Or buying one, installing XP and then returning it?

rbonzer

09-03-03, 07:13 PM

If you are doing a clean (or from a FAT formatted disk) install, find a 98 boot floppy. Boot from the floppy. You'll be able to see the CD. Just copy the right folder (I think its called I386 or something) to the hard drive.

If the copy works, then you can run winnt (or setup?) from the new folder on the hard drive. I've done it with my last install, I just can't remember what the right commands are.

If the copy fails, then I don't know what you can do, other than borrow someone's external CDROM drive.

RichW

09-05-03, 07:30 PM

Another thought...

It may be failing because of a device conflict with software "plug-and-play". If your BIOS setup allows to toggle between software and hardware PNP, try setting it to the other value and see if it works.

I have worked on some systems where it finally works by toggling that value twice with a reboot between each setting change. It may be a long shot, but its worth a try.