EXPERT HELP NEEDED: Installing XP on a PII

Hello everyone!

I was hoping that you could help me with my problem. I have an old laptop, COMPAQ ARMADA 7800 to be precise and it's a Pentium II notebook. It had Windows XP installed on it, until I formatted it (it wouldn't boot because either a) a virus infected the windows directory or b) windows files became corrupted or c) some unknown reason that I am not aware of.

It's really old and ugly, it's just that Windows won't boot, so I ended up reformatting it with a Windows 98 startup disk (CD version).

I am going to try my Windows XP SP3 CD again or try a different one (in case this specific CD is damaged) and see what happens. Until then, I am waiting for a kind member of this forum to help me.

Basically:

I WANT TO INSTALL WINDOWS XP PRO SP3 ON IT

THANK YOU! :wave

 

We need to figure whether the spec is high enough to run XP Pro. What is the notebook's specifications including Hard Drive size?

Also, your Windows XP SP3 CD...have you used it to install the operating system on any other computer?

 

Hi Lev,

Thanks for your prompt reply!

I have used my XP Pro SP3 CD on other computers, and it's just this one that isn't working. I tried using Hiren's Boot CD to try and boot some Hard Disk regenerators and partition managers, so that I could format it easily, however, they were UHARC files, so it was unable to open.

Aside from that, the laptop's specifications are as follows:

PII 266 MHZ
64 MB Ram
~ 8 GB

Once again, I'm not too sure about this but I don't know how to jump into the BIOS to figure everything out for you.

Hope this helps! Once again, THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME

 

The minimum requirements for XP Pro are:

300Mhz
128 MB RAM
1.5GB HD

So under two areas your notebook probably isn't going to be functional, unfortunately.

 

Even if you could load XP, it would be so slow to be almost unusable. Oh, and forget trying to use an app, that thing will choke. My girlfriend has a bottom end laptop, 1,5GH CPU and 128MB RAM and I can't bear to use it though she doesn't care. All she does is write, check e-mail and surf a little bit.

 

Thank you for your comments and helpful advice!

It is greatly appreciated and I am going to try another OS instead. As for Windows XP, can I install Windows XP Home instead, or is that going to have the same result. I know that the requirements aren't as high as Pro.

One more thing Lev, I know that it is possible, and I am a fairly skilled computer technician. I just don't ever install it on laptops this old and crappy.

 

Windows XP Home edition will not make a difference. They both have the same system requirements. Personally, I would move to linux.

 

Sure, it is possible, but as I said, it would not be functional...meaning pretty much what Augie said. It works, but it doesn't perform.

 

Thanks a lot Lev and Augie!

I explained this to my friend and she is cool with Windows ME / 2000 or 98 being installed on there.

To be honest with you, I was kind of angry with my friend because it's unrealistic for her to expect this crappy P2 is going to run Windows XP so smoothly.