stuck in reformat

[chazman221 0]

I have read alot in this forum about this but it was in a post in the linux forums. I hope the same resolutions apply to me. I just don't know what "grub" is ......let me explain

 

 

Got a used computer. Illegal XP pro on it. I reformat with my legal, full version XP home. Done this a few times with no problems, not this time.

Sorry if I don't word this perfect, I'm learning.....What I did.....

 

Reformat hard drive to ntsf? (not quick)

let the XP Home disc do it's thing

Tells me this portion is done, restarts computer

tries to run autochk and can't find it so doesnt run it

everything starts booting past the XP home screen then i get nailed with blue screen

" STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error} The Session Manager Initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000003a (0x00000000 ..."

Tried to reboot all ways(safe, ect.)

Ran Xp home disc again, I can get into repair (black) screen but don't know what to do

Ran XP home disc, pressed enter to start, ran all the way to "press f8 to accept"

Next screen I see says "can't read disc".......press enter when I have disc loaded" The disc I have is the real deal, not copied.

 

 

I can not get past this screen to start over, I have no clue what to do.

 

Nothing was wrong with this computer

emachine 600is, 10gig hd, nothing special, nothing on it before I started. Shouldent be anything now since I got all the way through reformat.

I read on google search to run "grub" bootloader. I have no idea which one to download or what to do with it.

Please help

Charlie

 

[danleff 0]

Forget about Grub, unless you have a dual boot system with a Linux distribution on it. The posts that you read probably was speaking about that situation. You are probably speaking of this post?

 

Did you try a repair installation as described here? Not the recovery console?

 

How much memory is in this machine? Also I notice that you have a 10 gig hard drive. Is this the one that originally came with the system?

 

There may be issues with hidden partitions on the hard drive and Windows can't find enough space to install. It may also be that the hard drive is going south. What was the partition size that was created when you reformatted the drive?

 

You may want to get a utility program, such as Maxblast (if you have a Maxtor drive) and zero write the drive, then format it to NTFS. At that point, then try to install Windows.

 

 

[chazman221 0]

I was going to do a repair just as you listed but I get up to step 4 ( pressing f8 ) and then it says it can't read the disc anymore/insert a disc

 

not very much memory 128 or 256

 

I think there was almost 9gig

 

How do I know if I have a Maxtor drive?

[danleff 0]

The original owner may have done some funky things with the drive (ie; installed a third party bootloader) that affected how the Windows install disk sees the drive.

 

You should have seen more than almost 9 gigs. Either it is what I said above, or this system has a hidden partition that stored configuration data. Compaq HP and other system makers often do this.

 

Also, you will get these errors if Windows does not see the drive capacity correctly for the full reinstall.

 

Memory installed is also important, as XP likes at least 256 of RAM.

 

Do you have another hard drive that you can try on the system? Otherwise, either you can crack open the case to see what drive is in it, or use a Linux live cd to see exactly what drive that you have. The eMachines site does not give the original make of hard drives that they put in this system.

 

Each hard driver maker usually has a utility that allows proper wiping of the drive (zero writing) and prep. for Windows (formatting the drive to NTFS for a Windows installation). Maxblast is Maxtor's utility.