Windows XP boot errors..

ok, so i have been having a lot of problems lately trying to start up my computer.. now i am on to this problem.. I have two hard drives in my computer and I deleted the partition on both of the hard drives. Now I get errors on both of them so I can not even install Windows on either of the hard drives.. On the first hard drive the error I get is Error: SXS.DLL:SYNTAX ERROR IN MANIFEST OR POLICY FILE "D:\I386\ASMS\6000\MSF\WINDOWS\COMMON\CONTROLS\CONTROLS.MAN" on line 0

then Error:
Installation Failed D:\I368\ASMS ERROR MESSAGE:MANIFEST PARSE ERROR: Invalid at the top level of the document

now after all that I go to the Windows XP setup screen (from booting from the CD) and I try to delete the partition and this it what is says when I try to even see the partition

"Setup was unable to load support for the mass storage device you specified currently setup will load support for the following mass storage devices

<none> " and it also says, (Setup cannot access this disk)

Now onto the second hard drive

I go to load Windows and this is the error that comes up

a bunch of error messages but this is the main problem it comes up with
" PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA "

if anyone can please help me with either of the hard drive problems I greatly appreciate it.. I have been trying to fix this for a few weeks now and have had no luck. Thank you so much in advance!

Omen

 

Did you move the hard drives around in the computer--meaning did you move one from master to slave? I'm trying to figure out if it might be a jumper problem.

*****
Have you tried installing Windows with just one HD connected as master? If you try this is Windows get as far as being able to copy files to a temporary space for installation?

 

I did move the HardDrives around, but I set the master and slave jumpers correctly.. I also tried to install Windows on one HardDrive set to master and still nothing.. Its wierd too because it shows Windows like installing, but when it reboots it just starts all over again and boots from the CD.. any other tips?

 

When you are installing you should only be hitting "Press any key to Boot from CD" once when you first put the CD in. The next two reboots you should not press any keys.

If you are only hitting any key once then there is something wrong with it finding the HD which doesn't make sense to me since it is copying files somewhere. Not an answer just me thinking this over.

 

thats what is wierd to me too... i do not hit any key and yet it still boots from the CD.. i dont get it.. i have two hard drives too and i find it hard to beilve that both of them are bad, espcially since one is new... i know it is possible they could be bad, but i dont think that is the problem.. but it just keeps rebooting from the cd over and over if i have the cd in.. now if i take the cd out and boot up i get an error saying something like, "cant find system disk" or something like that.. i cant really remember... i need to fix this though.. im dieing without my pc.. heh

 

Just a shot in the dark here, but what type of interface are the hard drives hooked up to? Perhaps there are drivers that are needed for them. I'm sure you've seen the screen during install that ask you to press F6 if there are any third party drivers to install prior to continuing......

 

one of them is IDE and the other is SATA... Yes, I have seen that,but I never knew what that was for.. what should I use that for?? wont I need a boot diskette for that or something?? thank you so much for your help..

 

Well that depends on which one your boot is hooked up to. If your boot drive is just hooked up to a plain vanilla ide port, you shouldn't need to do anything out of the ordinary. But if it is something like a raid port you would need to have the proper drives on a floppy and do the F6 part during the initial part of setup. If you main drive is sata, then it is possible to just go into your bios and set the sata port for ide emulation. Then it should just pick it up as a regular ide port. Be aware though in emulation mode you lose a bit of the performance of a sata drive. Setup in Sata mode, you made need those drivers on a floppy for the F6 part..... Hope this is of some help.

 

yea.. i dont think i need to use the raid port, but lets say im using the SATA as my main hard drive, and thats the only one i have hooked up right now, would my best bet to go into bios like you said and change it to the emulation mode? i really just need to get windows up and running on at least one of the hard drives so i can fix the other one.. im thinking the IDE one would be the easiest (that one is the newest too) but when i have that one plugged in, and only that one, i get like a disk error.. i am at work right now, but when i get home i will write down what the error is and post it for you to see.. anyways.. thanks a lot for your help

omen

 

I think with just the sata drive hooked up and set to ide emulation or something to that effect (bioses differ in there wordings on this) that would be your best bet. As long as the bios correctly identifies your drive, installing windows should be a straight forward affair.....

 

ok, so now when i use the sata drive.. i am getting a non-system disk error.. should i try my IDE one? why would i get that error? are the jumpers not set correctly?

 

Non system disk means no OS installed as far as I know. Have you tried installing Windows on this drive as it is now set up?

 

yes i have and it goes to the install screen (when i boot from the cd) and it looks like everything is being installed correctly and then when it goes to restart, it just boots from the CD again and again and again.. and if i take the CD out, i get that error again.. its very strange.. i mean i have to sit there for a while and let windows xp install and i see the status bar and everything go all the way to 100%, but when i go to restart its like i never even installed it at all... any more solutions?

 

Have you checked in the bios to see where that hard drive is listed in the boot order? Move it up to be the first boot device after windows says it's done installing and see what happens......

 

Update to my problem:

Ok so when i boot directly from the Hard Drive using the Sata hard drive I get this error "Non-system disk or disk error, Replace and Strike any key when ready" also i get this error too,
"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional refrence." Which i have none of..

Then if I try to boot from CD I get this error when I am trying to boot from the Windows CD, "Setup could not determine the type of one or more mass storage devices installed in your system or you have chosen to manually specify an adapter. Currently, Setup will load support for the following mass storage devices <none>

so i am stuck now and i have no idea what to do.. i made sure the jumpers were in the proper spot and i made sure everything was hooked up correctly and i tried reformating and doing it over, but i am still getting these errors..
I dont know if this helped but i tried an IDE DPS Self-Test and it was succesfull and it came out with these results
Completion code: 0
Drive info:
Size 250gb
Model WDC WD2 500KS-00NA-BO
Firmaware= 0.0.01c03
Serial Number WD-WCANK 2636515
Location Sata1

well thats all the info i have for now, i hope that helps.. please help!! im desperate.. heh

omen

 

ok, i got as far as trying to install windows but once it gets to the part where windows boots up and it goes to the final install screen where it has like the different install procedures on the left side of the screen and tells you what part of the install its at, well right when that comes up before it asks for the cd key or anything like that it comes up with this error

"An error has been encountered that prevents setup from continuing.
One of the components that Windows needs to continue setup could not be installed

Manifest Parse Error: Invalid at the top level of the document " then it has like an OK button to hit and when you hit that it shows more information about the error and summing it up it says this,
"Error: SXS.DLL: Syntax error in manifest or policy file "D:\I386\asms\6000\MSFT\Windows\Common\Controls\Controls.Man" on line 0."

Error:
Installation Failed D:\I386\asms Error Message: Manifest Parse Error: Invalid at the top level of the document.

Any tips on this?? Please help

thanks,
omen

 

I'm beginning to wonder if you have a damaged XP install disk. Any chance of borrowing one from someone? You can still use your registration key when the time comes. Your first and last posts have the same error that points to a faulty XP disk the posts in between could just be due to moving around hardware cables etc.

Or if you have a second CD or DVD ROM try using that drive instead to read the CD.

 

Sounds like you could have a defect on your install cd and it is having a problem reading that file.

 

yea.. ill try to borrow a friends xp install disk and then let you know what it says.. thanks for all your help by the way

 

Update:
Ok so I got a hard drive that I know works for sure and has Windows XP installed on it. I plugged it into my computer and choose to boot from Hard drive (C: ) and it just freezes at the DOS screen where it says Booting from Hard Drive (C: ). I made sure the jumper settings were correct and everything was set right and it is still not working. So I eliminated the chance of it being a hard drive issue. Now I have no idea at all what it could be. Could it be a BIOS problem? I am so confused, I have never have had this type of problem before. Do I need a new motherboard? please help

 

Hi omen, I'm going to reread the whole post and think about it.

One thought is that a HD that has XP already installed on it won't work (boot) in a completely different computer because the hardware is too different. I'm not sure what type of error you would get it may just be the DOS screen you mention. (Anyone reading know for sure?)

What is the make and model of your PC?

Oh and go to your User Control Panel at the top of the screen and Edit Options and turn on personal messages.

 

you will have to reinstall windows. Changing the hard drive like you said from pc to another is a prob. The other computer will cause an entirely different configuration inside XP. Unless you were to get lucky and XP could re-adapt itself to the 2nd pc but not most likely. Havent read this whole thread but replying to the last post. Sounds like a fresk install may be all you need. Just suggestions. Having fun in the forums

 

I've been following this whole thread, as I had a similar experience last week, where XP wouldn't load, but I also *did* have, amazingly enogh, what appeared to be too bad HD's, and I was changing out *everything* including CPU, even, and looking hard at my motherboard also...

My final solution was to load XP from another disk, to a new HD, and of course, I couldn't register it--it was XPpro, while this laptop, for a friend, was XPhome, but after that, I could load the old HD o.k...after getting into 'R' and doing a fixboot, and fixmbr...

Also, I had to format the HD and fix it w/another pc, as I was getting sick of the same msgs you were seeing, and pretty much had my bios, and the various changes I made, memorized...

Sometimes it really does seem you can swap out every damed component on the PC and *still* have same miserable problem, which can be really spooky, and totally unbelievable to anyone reading...

Ususally, w/me, it's something minor that I missed...in my case, on two of the HD's, a while ago I had a split setup between linux and XP, and somehow or another I had corrupted the boot sector...or at least that's my final take...but also, what fixed it, was *instead* of trying to load Windows, I hit "R" and brought up the recovery area and did fixboot, and all that, until they were both right....

But anyway, I guess sometimes we have more than one problem, and that makes everything hard to trace....

I know I'm not much help here, just wanted to wish you well with this...bottom line, w/me, was a "too old" xp disk *and* two old HD's...fixing the mbr and using another pc to format was the slow miserable way I finally fixed'em...so far ;-)

 

I don't know this may help you or not..but I would like to share in this forum. Please make sure that SATA drivers were installed. I had problems with my PC..where I was trying to install Win ser 2003 on top of Vista Home premium in Acer Aspire AM5641. It didn,t let me install...when ever I tried to install Win ser 2003, I used to get a blue screen which shows hard drive corruption prob. So I used NLITE to prepare a CD consisting of Win ser 2003 with including SATA drivers. I boot it from this CD and it worked fine. Below is the link..hope it may help you.


http://www.nonoh.com/20080502

Thanks.

 

I told another fellow this, and I'm kind of embarassed, but I had similar problem, almost exactly: I kept going back to bios, boot sector, IDE setup, everything, and finally, after *days* of swapping out everything but my motherboard...I went to bios, and set it back to *default* F9, and then it booted correctly, and I *think* I had something wrong in the boot setup, but I'll be damned if I'm sure, but anyway, you've probably already done this, but usually--with me--it's something simple that I've overlooked, or that I've looked at so many times, that I'm not seeing it anymore...once (it turned out)I had my power strip turned off, asking all kinds of convoluted electrical questions, and I won't even get into how stupid that made me feel...

Anyway, best wishes: this crap can be so frustrating...but every time I deal with it, and come here and ask questions, my knowledge level increases ten-fold...

 

It is a Dell not to sure what model is I will have to check when I get home.. I am just so suprised that this problem is so confusing! I dont get what it could be at all.. thanks for all your help

 

Did you try a different XP CD? If you couldn't find one copying yours and then burning it might be worth a try.

The original error on the missing file still points to a bad CD according to Microsoft.

 

I loaded mine with another xpdisk, and then when the *1st* screen comes up, not the final one, asking whether I want to load windows, or exit, or recover, I loaded my original disk, and then it went thru fine, and I was able to register, even tho my *first* disk, was xp-pro...also, since I had a corrupted boot sector, from linux, I had to first go to the recovery area, and fixboot, and fixmbr before doing final install, but u may not need that.

Anyway, again, hope it worked out.

 

yea.. i have done fixmbr and fixboot and still getting the error.. when i get home today i am going to try a different xp cd.. now when i put in the new xp cd.. do i need to redo it? hopefully it will solve my problem!

 

I also finally put in new boot cd, and when that same 1st screen pops up, that's when I replaced it w/my old disk, and it went thru, and I just ran it thru, and never had to re-register, it all went fine...but I tried all kinds of things, until I got it, u know, running one disk, then the other, and finally *washed* and scrubbed my original disk, in case it had something like that, then did the new boot disk, and when 1st screen came up, put in old disk, and it went thru fine...

Best wishes: this can be *so* frustrating, and my heart would start pounding, the closer it got to Windows coming up, figuring I'd get the same thing again...but nope, finally it worked....hope it does for you!

 

Sorry if I'm butting in on this discussion, but I had similar problem with PC trying to boot in a continuos loop following a blue screen crash, the cause of which I know not.
After trying everything I know to solve the boot problem including trying mumerous Repair procedures I eventually booted from cd and reinstalled on same partition.
It was only when I restarted that I noticed that there were three systems showing! I clicked on the top one and everthing started ok, but I feel I should be able to revert to the original system by clicking on the second system, but am scared to even try it!
My problem is that I have lost all of my organised folders, both on the desktop and in Outlook Express!
I have managed to import the address book, but don't know how to recover my folders or the message system which I had set up to channel emails.
Is there any way I can recover these, as it has taken me years to set them to dump spam, delete porn messages etc, and to move emails from friends and family into their own folders.
Incidentally, I've found them elsewhere on the PC, but don't know how to import them into O.Express.
Any tips welcome.

 

I did a lot of the things you are doing, when I had this problem a while back, swapping everything out, replacing hard drives, washing the disk, *living* in bios/cmos and stuff...I finally just got irritated, and reset bios to default setup, as I had rearranged boot drives, every *which* way, and after hitting f5--on my dell--which resets it to "default settings(on exit)"--it booted right up perfectly, and I *still* can't figure out what I missed, but anyway, if you get to the "hail mary" stage, and you've replaced everything but your cat, you might try that....