Acer T310 Windows XP Problem

A family member of mine has brought his computer around to me for repair. I have a degree in computing so I’m good with computers. It had problems and viruses so we agreed we would just format it. I put the Windows XP CD in and followed the instructions like I have done 1000 times before. And here's what happened:

I have tried installing XP home and pro at least 10 times but every time I do, there is always a different error. Most of the time it is an error during the copy process when setup says "Setup is copying files". wmp.dll was the last one but its usually different files.

After skipping these files the computer finishes the steps and reboots into the next step of the XP setup process. Then I will get the following error "windows could not load the installer for CDROM" followed by one other, I think was Drive something.

The one time I did manage to get through the errors and get the OS working, the network card wouldn't work. The card is onboard, and does show in device manager, but wont show under network connections. Other strange things seemed to happen as well, the automatic updates amongst other services where stopped ad wouldn't start.

I thought the hard drive was on its way out so I bought a new one and still the same. I tried changing the IDE cables just in case and nothing. I also put the new hard drive in another computer and windows installed fine onto that.

Does anyone know what's going on here and how I can get XP installed on this machine? The recovery partion and CD are out the window and I don’t really want to change the motherboard. I have searched Google and can’t find anything. One forum said something bout the SIS chipset.

I look forward to any help that you can provide.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Thanks for your reply.

The computer has 2 CD Drives in it, I have tried installing XP with both drives but always get the same result.

Try disconnecting one of the optical drives. The bad one may also be taking the good one with it.

i have same problem like you, and my pc always unstable like blue screen error , after that i updated the mobo bios from acer support and it solved all my acer t310 pc problem , i hope it will help you too, thx

have a nice day