WIN XP Pro Install Error

Working on a Gateway ES2 300X, 2.1G, 512M, 40G HD.

System has been running on Win XP Home Edition. She has never done maintenance and by the time I received the rig, it was bogged down. Long story short I decided just to wipe it and install a fresh version of Win XP Pro. I have a good product key for Home but no original software.

Went in and reformatted drive and started the fresh install. Get about 10 minutes into it and I get the following error:

D:/I386/asms. The volume for the file has been externally altered so that the opened file is no longer valid. The install stops here.

I tried a 2nd XP Pro disc (original discs) and even put in a new CD Rom drive in case the old one wasn't reading it. I am tempted to try a new HD but wanted some feedback first. Can't try an XP repair since the old drive has been reformatted.

any Ideas ???? Thanks

 

>> Long story short I decided just to wipe it and install a fresh version of Win XP Pro. I have a good product key for Home but no original software. Went in and reformatted drive and started the fresh install. Get about 10 minutes into it and I get the following error: D:/I386/asms. The volume for the file has been externally altered so that the opened file is no longer valid. The install stops here. << smittji

Could be several things causing this difficulty. This 1006 error generally comes from some kind of "hardware" problem. The very first thing I would try would be using the free "diagnostic utility" (from the vendor of your hard disk) to check for problems with the hard disk. Here are a few of the HD websites:

www.fujitsu.com
http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm
www.maxtor.com
www.seagate.com
www.wdc.com/service/ftp/drives.html
www.westerndigital.com

Additionally, it’s also quite possible that the CD Rom drive may not be "reading the disk" correctly due to contamination on either the install disk or the lasers on the drive. Try cleaning the Win XP installation disk as well as cleaning the CD Rom drive heads to see if that works. You might also try copying d:\i386 to c:\windows\i386 and run the install from c:\windows\i386.

Are you using multiple drives (CD and/or DVD, I mean)? The reason that I ask is that I had the same problem about three years ago. As it turned out; the CD-Rom was not able to read the CD properly.

It would appear that the multiple CD/DVD drives are seen differently and this can cause some confusion during the XP install setup. I know this because when I had the same issue, and I received the error, I placed my XP installation CD into the other drive, re-booted, and setup took off (where it left off) and ran perfectly.

Note: Make sure that you use only a CD-Rom or DVD-Rom drive during the XP installation process. (Not a CD or DVD "RW" burner type of drive)

Good Luck!

 

Thanks for the mucho info. I am suspecting a hardware issue as well. I am trying a new HD atm and it is at least formatting.. Will let you know how it goes. Thanks for the HD utilities, totally forgot about them

 

Hello

I got the same error while I was copying some 500MB data on the USB stick....At the same time I was running some application over USB interface bus but both these operations are separate....

Sometimes the USB stick becomes inaccessible after the error message appears...

Not getting the exact cause of such error...

Can anyone throw some light on this issue???