INF file missing....HELP??

i got my custom built pc that i got as a gift up and running...-DFinally!) and now it wont load windows off the hard drive...i thought..ok ill just reinstall. no biggie. so i went to reinstall windows, thought i would put windows 7 on it..went to load the cd and it tells me that it doesnt have a boot sector..(i have used it before and it worked) so i try my windows xp cd, it reads it and starts to setup the configuration..and then stops and brings up on the screen "INF file txtsetup.sif is corrupt or missing, status 14. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit."confused

:cryWhat do i dooo?? it did this on both a normal windows xp cd and a dell OEM cd with service pack 1. i tried a program given to me called Mime pe? and it couldnt load either. any help appriciated..thanks

 

i usually reinstall a lower version of windows say an XP or ME.


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this is a xp issue....the windows 7 didnt read at all. the 2 i got the error on are both windows xp discs. i dont have anything older than xp.

 

now there is a new error. i switched DVD drives and now it got to where it was loading drivers and stuff for the windows xo setup. and it now says "File \i386\ntkrnlmp.exe could not be loaded. The error code is 7. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit." this one is within the blue startup screen of the windows installation...in the top corner it says Windows Setup..

 

Hmm, I'd remove all sticks of ram but one, the soundcard, the vid card (if you have on board video to use), Network card, unhook all hard drives except one, setup the BIOS to it's safe default settings and try it again. Is it loading drivers when you get this error or is setup copying them from the disc?

 

im trying to install windows xp off a cd. when i try to get into safemode to use my old install it hangs at agp440.sys im going to try to install with the advice you just gave. we shall see if that works..it wont load any os cds i have. im about to try linux if this doesnt work. see if it boots up with that.

EDIT:: i unplugged everything except for videocard, 1 hard drive and 1 stick of ram and it wouldnt even go to the boot selection...it just locked up at the post. i put my wireless card, other ram other hard drive back in and now its working fine again....well not fine...but its working like it was again....any other ideas?

 

sorry for the repost..i just missed my 10min edit for the last post. i loaded up Damn Small Linux. it got to where to penguin is in the top left corner and says "Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:02"....any ideas.

 

Depending on the motherboard, you might have to have the ram stick put into one particular slot if your running one stick of ram. Also, if the drives are IDE (wide ribbon cable) you may need to set the jumper on the drive to master. If it's a SATA harddrive, make sure it's plugged into SATA plug one on the motherboard.

What motherboard manufacturer / model is it?

 

its a elitegroup p4s5a2 rev 1.0 motherboard. all this stuff was working when i took it out of my dell. the only thing that wasnt in the dell was the motherboard...altho it was giving me a issue when i tried to get into windows on the dell..would get to the windows xp loading screen and give a blue screen of death....i just now tried running linux off the RAM only and it got farther than normal but stopped while copying the DSL Image to ramdisc...the ram checks out fine on post...

 

Check your IDE hard drive cables. Check the back of the hard drive you plan installing windows to and make sure the jumper is set to master. Make sure that IDE hard drive cable is plugged into IDE 1 (it's usually marked on the motherboard) Also be careful you don't have the IDE cable plugged in backwards. Most are keyed to help you avoid this but it still happens. I'm pretty sure you just have the hard drive hooked up incorrectly. I don't know how you have the CD/DVD rom setup but, you might want to put the CD/DVD rom drive on IDE channel 2 by itself, make it a master by checking the back of the CD/DVD drive and putting the jumper on the master pins.

 

ok, i will try that and repost, thx

 

alright. i switched the cables around and now it stops after checking the ram at startup. i hit f8 for boot menu and it just hangs.....

 

now its not reading the hdds

 

after doing everything you said. it cant read the hard drives now. only the dvdrw drives and floppy.....