Harddrive, h/w or windows issue?

Darith

Xp home will not reinstall on my computer. Ubuntu will but will only after a two to three reboots. Hardrive issue? or something else?

cookie1977

Possibly a hard drive issue. Have you tried completely deleting all partitions and formating the entire drive and then cleanly installing windows xp?

Capt'n Midnight

if ubuntu is on the drive then

sudo apt-get install smartmontools (if it tries to set up email - choose no configuration , don't ask)

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
sudo smartctl -l error /dev/sda


Or use the BIOS HDD diag utility, if you don't have a HDD diag utility use Parted Magic, http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=start
it's got a GUI that will allow you to run SMART tests on the Drive,
- check if already errors , if so backup data and buy new drive
if not then do short test, conveyance, long tests in that order , to verify drive is OK





Without error messages it could just as easily be a RAM problem (if you ubunt has memtest then run that overnight if you find no other problem) or a mother board problem, - way too little info to go on


XP reinstall , means you are inheriting stuff, a previous config problem could still exist ,


OR


you could post the XP error messages ...

Darith

cookie1977 wrote: »

Possibly a hard drive issue. Have you tried completely deleting all partitions and formating the entire drive and then cleanly installing windows xp?

I did a full format of the drive and tried to install windows. The strange thing is that the cd works ok when insatlled as a virtual on ubuntu which should mean the cd is ok.

Darith

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

if ubuntu is on the drive then

sudo apt-get install smartmontools (if it tries to set up email - choose no configuration , don't ask)

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
sudo smartctl -l error /dev/sda


Or use the BIOS HDD diag utility, if you don't have a HDD diag utility use Parted Magic, http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=start
it's got a GUI that will allow you to run SMART tests on the Drive,
- check if already errors , if so backup data and buy new drive
if not then do short test, conveyance, long tests in that order , to verify drive is OK





Without error messages it could just as easily be a RAM problem (if you ubunt has memtest then run that overnight if you find no other problem) or a mother board problem, - way too little info to go on


XP reinstall , means you are inheriting stuff, a previous config problem could still exist ,


OR


you could post the XP error messages ...

Funny you should mention ram as i starte dto have problems when i upgraded to full 4gb ram although bios show ok when i boot up when ram passing at 4gb nominal.I will try those ubuntu commands to see if it works. I also have memtest cd so i will check ram again. At the start of my issues around xmas i installed avg as my norton ran out. Of course i uninstalled norton security, howevere i think the wrong decision in leaving norton utilities installed. Thne again the hard drive is around four years old and does not sound healty when it boots up.