It's just sat there 0% Formatted ... the HD light is flickering so its attempting something?

 

LOL Pete I did say if you have problems then let me know

Yes whilst it is formatting it will be doing a check on the disk and fixing any errors during the check, so it may take a while

 

Got fed up and remembered it had a 'quick' option to format as NTFS - so, turned off and went that route ..... it was much quicker!

Looks like XP has loaded now

Oooooooo, I'm GOOD!!

It will go wrong I'm sure ... it's got WiFi in it and the neighbour has unsecured WiFi ..... how do I set it up to use his thingy??

 

Now it's sat at the 'Registering Components' - the progress bar is at about 20% and hasn't moved in 10 minutes

It looks like it may be 'Hung' ...... bloody thing should be 'Hung and Quartered'!!!

 

Quick format doesnt do the surface check Pete

Regsitering components can take a while

jumping on unsecured wireless

(just double click on the wireless

 

It has moved on a bit now ...... I'm just impatient

Just click on wireless, eh??

I've had a chat with him this morning and he said he doesn't have his router turned on because the box gets really hot ...... I said it will better to leave it running constantly

I did admit why

Its asked me which OS i want to start the laptop with ..... I said XP .. went in the crashed out

 

Will start 98 but crashes on the opening screen of XP .... a blue screen and text flashes up very quickly then it goes into the Safe Mode option screen.

I take 2 steps forward and 1 back ... but, I'm getting somewhere

A clean instal off a newly burned CD would be the best route .... if I knew how to burn it properly!

 

Right, finally burnt myself a bootable disc and put that in to load XP - maybe the other instal got hung-up as it was for my desktop.

But, this is a nice clean XP from Microsoft .... I have a genuine product key, so - here we go again.

I'm supposed to be washing the 3 cars today!!!

 

My router used to get really hot, most do, once they reach a certain temperature they stay that hot, but usually work fine

blue screen could mean a whole manner of things, would really need to know what the STOP error is, if you can see it quick enough

Right, to burn the CD image correctly, rename the *.img file you have of XP to *.iso

Open Nero, go to the recorder menu and choose Burn Image, then browse to the newly renamed *.iso file, and let it burn, but not too fast a speed (about 10 or 12x speed)

Then install a clean fresh installation of XP Home, let it do the full slow format as this will surface check the hard disk for errors and fix them, it will take longer though

 

Thanks a lot for your help Sonic .... I don't think I'm quite in receipt of a fully functioning Laptop - but, at least I have loaded 98 and XP is trying its best

If I can get it working, it would be worth investing in a new hard drive and battery maybe?

 

It's asking for a Product Key and I typed the one it accepted a while ago and it won't accept it now!!

It's the damned number I have on the back of the Laptop so, it's genuine!!

 

So you typed it in wrong! Or more likely you are trying to install a version of XP that the license key you have on the lappy isn't for.

 

No, I wonder if it's because I used it before with another disc??

 

Pete you have PM

But is it giving a reason why it wont accept the key, or is it just saying its not a valid key? if so read your PM

If it works, I would get a new hard drive, a new battery however might be too expensive, unless Ebay can turn any up

 

Said it was not valid.

Thanks for the pm

 

heh the install can't tell whether its been used before or not.

I bet the lappy was upgraded from 98 to XP with an upgrade disc. And you are trying to install XP home or a full edition of XP, which it won't like against the license key you have on the lappy.

 

Different product keys for different versions, depending on whether its OEM VLK etc

Although there is no VLK for Home edition

 

what does "accured" mean?

 

I refer the poster to Post Number 1

It's Middlesbrough for another word

The bloody Laptop just loops around now.

XP Screen comes up, Blue Flash with writing on appears very briefly, black screen then Safe Mode Screen appears, re-boot not using last known good config (as there hasn't been any!) ..... Windows 98 works fine!?

Can I remove Windows98? Could that be messing things up? Having two OS on the same PC (on different partitions though).

I'm nearly at my wits end - almost a day spent pissing about with this thing, just washed the cars though - so thats good ....... the 12 year old MX5 looks fantastic polished up

 

Right, got the message from the blue screen which flashes up, and it reads:-

Stop: C0000218 [registry File Failure]

Registry cannot load the file hive [File]:sysroot\system32\config\DEFAULT or its log or alternative.

It is corrupt, absent or not writable.

Beginning dump of physical memory

Physical memory dump complete

Contact your system admin or tech support for assistance.

Anyone know what I need to do?

 

Hard Disk fault Pete

Sounds like you need to bin that hard drive and get a new one

Error Message When You Install Windows XP: "STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}"

It probably still has bad sectors, and maybe more that havent been picked up on the Scandisk

Windows 98 is a bit less forgiving and not as resource intensive as XP, XP on an older system with not a great deal of memory will pretty much thrash the hard drive

If it was me, id pick up a cheap 2.5 inch hard disk Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

 

Sonic - a really big thanks for all your efforts during my attempts to get the thing working ..... I have, just this last hour, got XP to load and to run perfectly

What I did was to go into the Recovery Console and format the C drive and then the D drive ....... I then re-loaded onto a clean drive - it worked perfectly

Now, my friend, how do I log onto someones wireless Internet LAN?

I am really in dark waters with that! But, it should be easy for you!

 

So u did mistype the license key then?

 

Darn thats what i was going to suggest

it may pay you to find out what make of drive it is, and see if it has "smart" technology, then d/l the utility and get some diags on the status of the drive


Mart

 

buy a new drive and be done with it

My personal prediction is that it will work for a little while, and then break again. The reason being that more areas of the drive become corrupt as there is something wrong with it. If you are going to be a tight git, then make sure you backup anything you don't want to loose very often.

 

NO?

I got a NEW key

It's got no sound, just bleeps and stuff - is that normal on a Laptop?

It was being used on a wireless network before it was thrown in my bin - but now, after formatting and loading of XP, it has lost everything the manufacturer put on it ..... how do I start to rebuild it?

It will show photos - which is to be its main use when it comes with me into Court .... going to show the Judge what an annoying pixel can look like

 

I really hope the laptop screen doesn't develop a pixel fault in the meantime

Usually do have sound

Go into Computer Management, and then Devices and see if any items have exclamation marks against them

Might be worthwhile going onto NEC's website and seeing if they have a support/download section for your model of laptop and download any relevant drivers (sound card, network card etc etc)

Wireless, when it tells you there is a Wireless Network in range double click on it, and it should attempt to connect, if no encryption and no mac address filtering then it should just connect and away you can surf

If it has encryption you will need the network key, which will either be WPA, WPA2, WEP 64 bit, or WEP 128bit

I agree with Loomy, that eventually the Hard Disk will get worse and worse and eventually fail or too many bad sectors to be usuable

You have though now proven that the rest of the Laptop works, so it may be wise to invest in a cheap 2.5inch IDE drive if you get a 7200 rpm one, you may find the laptop will be quicker

If you want more memory then go to Memory upgrades, flash media, and usb storage at Crucial.com as they are reasonably priced for Laptop memory, and will tell you what the maximum can be installed

When you are done with the court case, you could build a frame for the Laptop and use it as a very cheap Digital Picture Frame

 

In Device Manager these items have a ? and ! by them:-

Ethernet Controller
Multimedia Audio Controller
PCI Modem
Video Controller
Video Controller (VGA Compatable)

Everything else seems fine - even rge Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC .... which I find odd??

Anyway, there is NOTHING on the Desktop except a bin!!??

 

As Sonic said, you need the chipset (inc. ethernet controller) sound (MMedia audio) and display drivers (Vid controller) from the NEC website. Internal PCI modem you can disable in Dev manager if you want as you're already using broadband via the Realtek ethernet nic.

Desktop icons can be added from the desktop properties, i.e My computer,my documents, network etc.

 

Yep as Bioforger you will need the drivers from the Manufacturers Website

XP standard display only shows the recycle bin, unless you switch back to classic mode and you get the My Documents, My Computer, Network and Internet Explorer Icons back