Driver IRQL not less or Equal

I recently had an issue with a virus on my computer, and had to go get a new harddrive. I'm now trying to put a version of windows XP on my computer that was from my old dell laptop. The computer keeps going to a blue screen half way through set up with the error saying Driver IRQL not less or Equal. Is this because im using a version of XP that was built for my old dell? And is there a way to get it off the hard drive even though its only half set up?

 

What is your new hardware? Often the OS is tied to the motherboard but you can replace the other components. If you decide to install a different OS it will give you an option to reformat the HDD and thus overwriting any current DATA on the HDD.

 

Changing a component may cause the OS to prompt you to re-register Windows, but the OS is not "tied" to the hardware in such a way that would prevent installation or starting the OS. My guess is the WinXP disc you have is Service Pack 1 or lower. Is the error msg referencing pci.sys or apci.sys? If so, you're going to need to get a copy of WinXP Service pack 2 or greater.

 

That Dell disk is trying to load drivers for the Dell hardware and that is not matching your current hardware (PC), thus the error message.
You will need a generic or retail version of Windows that will match and load the drivers for your current hardware.

Good Luck,
The Shadow :cool

 

I bought a WD Caviar Green internal hard drive, sata 3.5, 1 TB. And sadly yes, the OS i was trying to throw on was a version of XP that was for a dell and was version 1.4, so service pack 1. I do have a copy of XP Professional Black now, but i can't get it to boot up because it just wants to go straight to the installation of the other version of windows xp.

 

When you start the computer, is there no (brief) prompt to enter a Boot Menu, and choose the CD?

Let me see if I can further explain what I was saying about the SP1 or lower thing. The old laptop, as supplied by Dell came with WinXP installed, and the necessary drivers for it's hardware. This was accomplished by copying a disk image to the HD, rather than booting from an OS CD and installing XP. If you were required to reinstall WinXP on the old laptop with that disc, you would have also had to install device-specific drivers from the additional resource CD that came with the laptop. When you use that same CD on a different computer, Dell or not, the OS revision must have base level drivers that are compatible with the hardware. In your case, XPSP1 was not able to deal with your recent model machine's storage interface (e.g. a 1TB drive). So, it's not a Dell thing-- Lord knows many a Dell XP disc has been used (illegally, I might add) to install XP on non-Dell machines.

 

no, all it wants to do is go directly to the version im trying to set up and finish installing the version that's half installed. Is there a way to erase the version thats half installed? I have a foxconn motherboard 945P7AA. and my brother put the newer version of XP professional black on dvd...does that matter?

 

There must be a way to force the boot from the CD/DVD. Restart the machine, and look closely very early in the boot up sequence for a prompt to enter System Setup, typically by hitting F12 or similar. In there you should be able to specify booting from the optical device first, before the HD. If that doesn't work, the disc you're trying to use is probably not bootable.

 

Did the Caviar come with a utility disc? Try booting from that and see if you can delete existing partitions on the HD. Then try your new XP installation disc.

 

Here's an article from MS for reformatting the HDD. Do you have a floppy drive available? If so DL the program they suggest in point 2 and reformat the HDD and then start from scratch:

https://www.microsoft.com/australia/smallbusiness/issues/technology/protect/harddrive.mspx

 

Damn I followed the link and it looks like a rort, trying to get you to pay $4 or some rubbish.

EVERYONE should have a copy of Ultimate Boot CD in their toolbox for emergencies and on that there are at least 5 HDD wiping tools:

Ultimate Boot CD 4.1.1 .

Of those at least one is quite renown:

Darik's Boot And Nuke
but this other one looks fairly good:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php#download

I didn't mean to link something that looks a bit dodgy and thought because it was MS it would be legit!

Anyway if you have the whole copy of UBCD you can boot from the CD (no floppy needed!) and clean up the current HDD with at least 5 tools to chose from. You will have tools for many other "situations" like RAM testing, HDD scan, system info, imho a MUST HAVE.

 

Just for clarification it seems to me that he is stuck in an installation loop. As soon as he starts the computer he is getting a message like "Installation not complete Do you want to finish the installation?" But there really is no choice but to try and complete the installation and eventually it gets to the Driver not Equal bit. This is how I am reading this thread.

He needs to bypass starting the installation and get the PC to boot from disc instead.

 

I agree sach2 he will need to change his "First Boot Device" option to CD/DVD and then hopefully be able to boot from CD and or floppy for that matter and then a "slow" reformat.

 

As mentioned in post #8 above...

 

thanks for all the help everyone. in my momentary lapse of polishness, i put the red drivers cd into the computer that came with the dell (which is what you are supposed to use first, but i dont have those drivers) at startup, once it was configured to boot the cd-rom drive before the hard drive, and there's the option to erase the hard drive on the disk. i should be good now. again, thank you everyone hahahaha.