I recently acquired an older computer from my parents with XP installed on it. It worked fine for them, no issues. I get it home and the first time I boot it up, it tells me it can't find the video driver. I boot it in VGA mode, upload the driver, and everything seems to work. I start cleaning out their files, uninstalling some programs I don't want, life is good.
The second time I started the computer, I recieved a "Fatal Systems Error" and the computer would no longer boot past the initial splash screen. Web-browsing suggested that I had a corrupted file (possibly due to uninstalling something) and that the only real solution was a fresh install. Their HDD was a mess, so I figured I might as well. I didn't have the XP disk that shipped with their system, but I did have an upgrade disk, so used that. Unfortunately, only *after* formatting the disk did it start to throw errors and say it couldn't find a bunch of files to copy. Needless to say, setup failed and it wouldn't boot. Undaunted, I tried installing again, but of course now there isn't an operating system on the disk, so it won't even run unless I can find an even older system disk.
I then tried to use a Win 7 upgrade disk, remembering that it would allow you to do a fresh install. Unfortunately, after the initial file loading screen, it tells me "Windows failed to start. ... File: \windows\system32\DRIVERS\arc.sys ... Status: 0xc0000098 ... Info: Windows failed to load because a critical system driver is missing, or corrupt."
Now, this is supposedly a freshly-formatted HDD for a fresh install. So what is the problem installing an operating system? Did I damage the HDD transporting it across town in my car? Is there something else I'm missing?
Any help would be greatly appreciated as this computer was for my kids and they're going to be very disappointed in the morning when they find out it doesn't work any more.
The second time I started the computer, I recieved a "Fatal Systems Error" and the computer would no longer boot past the initial splash screen. Web-browsing suggested that I had a corrupted file (possibly due to uninstalling something) and that the only real solution was a fresh install. Their HDD was a mess, so I figured I might as well. I didn't have the XP disk that shipped with their system, but I did have an upgrade disk, so used that. Unfortunately, only *after* formatting the disk did it start to throw errors and say it couldn't find a bunch of files to copy. Needless to say, setup failed and it wouldn't boot. Undaunted, I tried installing again, but of course now there isn't an operating system on the disk, so it won't even run unless I can find an even older system disk.
I then tried to use a Win 7 upgrade disk, remembering that it would allow you to do a fresh install. Unfortunately, after the initial file loading screen, it tells me "Windows failed to start. ... File: \windows\system32\DRIVERS\arc.sys ... Status: 0xc0000098 ... Info: Windows failed to load because a critical system driver is missing, or corrupt."
Now, this is supposedly a freshly-formatted HDD for a fresh install. So what is the problem installing an operating system? Did I damage the HDD transporting it across town in my car? Is there something else I'm missing?
Any help would be greatly appreciated as this computer was for my kids and they're going to be very disappointed in the morning when they find out it doesn't work any more.