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XP having problems installing

dwaugh

Turbo Monkey
May 23, 2002
1,816
0
Bellingham, Washington ~ U.S.A.
My computer has been giving me problems for a long time and finally I decided to just save all the files I wanted and then wipe it out and reinstall XP. Now, as I am reinstalling I am so far not able to get it working again. First of all, in the file loading process, one or two files wouldn't copy and I had to skip them, and on many others I had to retry loading them until they worked. That part of the process is now over. When I start my computer now to complete the installation it gives me the normal XP loading screen, then goes to a blue screen that says something like 'setup is now restarting....' After that, it goes to the dark blue screen and says "...system process terminated unexpectedly...system has been shut down."

I can't do anything beyond this, of course. Is there a way to restart the installation by pressing any button before the loading screen appears? Or is there a way that I might need to manually erase my harddrive to start over?

The reason I wanted to start from scratch again is because the computer was unreliable and shut down randomly (not a real shut down, but a sudden turn off) and, although it seemed to have gotten better recently, my MP3 player when plugged into the USB would freeze the computer quickly. I'm hoping now that if I can get the computer to work again with XP that I can sell it for an okay price and just buy a laptop.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
Your XP disc isn't scratched, is it, or maybe a bad CD drive? Sounds like it's having trouble reading the source media and if the source isn't correctly copied, the install will be FUBAR.
 

Ciaran

Fear my banana
Apr 5, 2004
9,839
15
So Cal
Sudden shutdowns are usually hardware related. Are you sure your motherboard and PS are OK? I was having issues with a PC and when I finally tried to rebuild it I ran into the same issue. (Not copying install files, failed boots after install) My mobo turned out to be going south on me. replaced the motherboard and the install worked perfect with the same disc (which I knew was not scratched or otherwise defective)

And of course the same stuff BV said.