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An Entry from the Archives

("Get a Mac" just isn't funny.) - but true...
Enjoy your weekend, my thoughts are with you (my Powerbook, btw, is working fine on the patio, and thanks to airport technology I can enjoy the sunny day ;-)
Ulrich

Dave

Try unplugging the 60 and the 80 for now and install again. If you still get the error then you know that it's something up with the 120.

Or

Take it back to the shop and tell them to muck around with it.

When you start getting error messages, are they consistent thereafter? Or do some files transfer, and others not? If the latter, is it the same files every time?

David,

Having gone through hard disk upgrade recently, I have some tips.

There are some 3 things that could have gone wrong. Either there's something with the XP install media or CD drive itself or there is something wrong with your CMOS setup. Third option, which seems less likely to me is that there is some interference / misconfiguration in hardware config between your 3 disks.

Have you been able to install the system from the old media?

If not, are the hard drives detected correctly after you boot? Any chance you have some manual hard drive settings in CMOS left from your old configuration? Not being able to copy some files sounds a bit like cache problem. This is something that your local HW guy would be better then yourself.

Before trying to muck around CMOS, I would write down how the hard drives are plugged & switched and then try to unplug the 80 & 60 and try the install procedure from scratch. This way you can rule out the third option.

Wish you good luck

I had some freakish behavior with a drive attached to an ATA card as well. Eventually I returned the drive (actually, I didn't return the drive because I bought it at CompUSA and you can basically never return anything there, but that's another story) and bought external storage. A 120GB Western Digital FW/USB2.0 drive. You can daisy-chain these babies together and never crack open your case again...

I have sometimes found a little smear of something on the CD-media, and using some Windex on a rag and cleaning the CD stops the problem. But that's just sometimes, but maybe worth a try.

It's back at the shop.

Random answers: I tried installing off of 2 copies of XP; since it failed in the same place in the install, it seems unlikely to be a media problem. I also tried installing off of two different CD drives. I ran one of the CDs through the disk repair contraption that has worked pretty well in the past. I tried installing with the 60 unplugged, but I didn't unplug the 80 (which is plugged into an ATA card, a combo that was working unproblematically in my previous pc, but who knows?). I plugged the 60 into the kids' computer this morning and XP liked it just fine; I copied a whole bunch of data off of it (whew). As far as the drives being correctly identified after I boot: Well, only sort of. The bootup sequence finds all three drives. The XP setup program usually sees the 60 but sometimes is wrong about its size. Xp Setup has twice done a repartition and format (slow, not the quick version) of the 120 and did no complaining about it. The CMOS is new because the mobo and CPU is new: Asus and Intel P4. The place I bought the machine is going to try installing off of their copy of XP.

At the moment, I'm torn between Dennis' ATA theory and regret at having cut ahead of that old fortune-teller woman at the Stop & Shop last week.

A couple questions:

1) Why do you have 3 hard drives? Isn't one enough?

2) Why would you clone the 60 GB drive to the 120?

3) Is your main concern bringing your old environement over exactly the same? Or are you OK with a clean install on the 120 and moving data over as needed?

Michael: 1. I have 3 drives because as I've needed more space, I have added them incrementally. Also, I use one of them (60M) as one of my two in-house back-up drives.

2. I cloned the 60 to the 120 to save the data on the 60 since it seemed to be acting funky.

3. I'm ok with a clean install of the 120. In fact, I've done the format, partition, lather, repeat cycle 3-4 times so far.

David,

1) I think the "get a Mac" advise is worth serious consideration.

2) I'm sorry you are experiencing these things... phenomenologically or in any other wise. It is a primitive and rude science (that hardly justifies the name.)

3) There must be a lesson here, chastening or otherwise, that I *really* look forward to reading about when you finally get through this. To me, but it's a rather wine soaked Saturday night, the impliecations are (could be) profound and are mainly grave.

4) It will be virtually *any* other OS for me before it is XP.

all the best. ...edN

David,

This sounds to me like you have a BIOS problem. Have them upgrade your BIOS. I bet that fixes the problem.

-Bosco