Strange Re-install issue WinXP Pro

I am trying a clean re-install of Win XP Pro but I get a message to
place CD in drive and access E:\i386 but E: is the drive I am
installing to and not a CD Rom. I am using the OEM disk that came with
the machine. I have searched Google for the same problem but I have
found nothing that fits my problem. Can someone please point me to a
solution? I know the disk is not damaged as I tested it with an
installation on an other system and it worked fine. Just not on the
one it goes to.

Thanks.

Al.

Allen Drake wrote:
I am trying a clean re-install of Win XP Pro but I get a message to
place CD in drive and access E:\i386 but E: is the drive I am
installing to and not a CD Rom. I am using the OEM disk that came with
the machine. I have searched Google for the same problem but I have
found nothing that fits my problem. Can someone please point me to a
solution? I know the disk is not damaged as I tested it with an
installation on an other system and it worked fine. Just not on the
one it goes to.

Thanks.

Al.

Are all your storage disks connected to IDE or SATA ports ?
(SCSI would be included in that list, but who uses SCSI...)
Not something USB in the way, like a USB card reader, USB pen drive
or the like ? Sometimes, an unloaded USB card reader "eats"
four drive letters. If it was something like that, just unplug the
internal cabling until the install is finished. Or just leave the
damn thing unplugged for good, as you see fit.

Another possibility, is you're currently connected to a network
share, and network shares and things like USB storage can conflict.

I doubt it's any of those, but that's all that comes to mind.

*******

One other thing, when you say "E: is the drive I am installing to",
don't forget that virtually every environment you work in, will
letter the drives differently. For example, in the last hour,
my D: partition has been E: in another environment, and G:
in yet another. The things just don't stand still. It could be,
where you're looking, the letter has moved and in fact you should be
just playing along with whatever letter it claims it is.

So, if while installing, it said it was installing to "G:",
by the time you boot again after the process is finished, it might
be C:. You never know. For data partitions, you can use Disk Management
to change the drive letter. That's not quite as good an option for
the OS partition, since some of the software is quite sensitive to
the drive letter (MS Office perhaps ? "Regular" software doesn't care.).

Paul

On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 01:31:18 -0500, Paul wrote:

Allen Drake wrote:
I am trying a clean re-install of Win XP Pro but I get a message to
place CD in drive and access E:\i386 but E: is the drive I am
installing to and not a CD Rom. I am using the OEM disk that came with
the machine. I have searched Google for the same problem but I have
found nothing that fits my problem. Can someone please point me to a
solution? I know the disk is not damaged as I tested it with an
installation on an other system and it worked fine. Just not on the
one it goes to.

Thanks.

Al.

Are all your storage disks connected to IDE or SATA ports ?
(SCSI would be included in that list, but who uses SCSI...)
Not something USB in the way, like a USB card reader, USB pen drive
or the like ? Sometimes, an unloaded USB card reader "eats"
four drive letters. If it was something like that, just unplug the
internal cabling until the install is finished. Or just leave the
damn thing unplugged for good, as you see fit.

Another possibility, is you're currently connected to a network
share, and network shares and things like USB storage can conflict.

I doubt it's any of those, but that's all that comes to mind.

*******

One other thing, when you say "E: is the drive I am installing to",
don't forget that virtually every environment you work in, will
letter the drives differently. For example, in the last hour,
my D: partition has been E: in another environment, and G:
in yet another. The things just don't stand still. It could be,
where you're looking, the letter has moved and in fact you should be
just playing along with whatever letter it claims it is.

So, if while installing, it said it was installing to "G:",
by the time you boot again after the process is finished, it might
be C:. You never know. For data partitions, you can use Disk Management
to change the drive letter. That's not quite as good an option for
the OS partition, since some of the software is quite sensitive to
the drive letter (MS Office perhaps ? "Regular" software doesn't care.).

Paul

I do have a card reader present that I was going to use to keep some
drivers on but I can connect that after the install. I have a PCI
SATA/RAID card present but no drives are attached.

I will look closer and remove the SATA card and unplug the reader.

Thanks Paul.

Al.

On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 01:31:18 -0500, Paul wrote:

Allen Drake wrote:
I am trying a clean re-install of Win XP Pro but I get a message to
place CD in drive and access E:\i386 but E: is the drive I am
installing to and not a CD Rom. I am using the OEM disk that came with
the machine. I have searched Google for the same problem but I have
found nothing that fits my problem. Can someone please point me to a
solution? I know the disk is not damaged as I tested it with an
installation on an other system and it worked fine. Just not on the
one it goes to.

Thanks.

Al.

Are all your storage disks connected to IDE or SATA ports ?
(SCSI would be included in that list, but who uses SCSI...)
Not something USB in the way, like a USB card reader, USB pen drive
or the like ? Sometimes, an unloaded USB card reader "eats"
four drive letters. If it was something like that, just unplug the
internal cabling until the install is finished. Or just leave the
damn thing unplugged for good, as you see fit.

Another possibility, is you're currently connected to a network
share, and network shares and things like USB storage can conflict.

I doubt it's any of those, but that's all that comes to mind.

*******

One other thing, when you say "E: is the drive I am installing to",
don't forget that virtually every environment you work in, will
letter the drives differently. For example, in the last hour,
my D: partition has been E: in another environment, and G:
in yet another. The things just don't stand still. It could be,
where you're looking, the letter has moved and in fact you should be
just playing along with whatever letter it claims it is.

So, if while installing, it said it was installing to "G:",
by the time you boot again after the process is finished, it might
be C:. You never know. For data partitions, you can use Disk Management
to change the drive letter. That's not quite as good an option for
the OS partition, since some of the software is quite sensitive to
the drive letter (MS Office perhaps ? "Regular" software doesn't care.).

Paul

Update:

All went well after I removed the SATA/Raid PCI card.

Thanks again Paul

Al.

"Allen Drake" wrote in message
...

I am trying a clean re-install of Win XP Pro but I get a message to
place CD in drive and access E:\i386 but E: is the drive I am
installing to and not a CD Rom. I am using the OEM disk that came with
the machine. I have searched Google for the same problem but I have
found nothing that fits my problem.

When instal routines give us a prompt like this, we are usually
able to /Browse to the correct folder (disk and drive.) Repost
telling us whether you can / Browse to the right location.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

One other thing you can do is delete the partition that you want to
install to by pressing the L key when prompted that way it will format
that partition before installing

On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 10:58:01 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
wrote:

"Allen Drake" wrote in message
.. .

I am trying a clean re-install of Win XP Pro but I get a message to
place CD in drive and access E:\i386 but E: is the drive I am
installing to and not a CD Rom. I am using the OEM disk that came with
the machine. I have searched Google for the same problem but I have
found nothing that fits my problem.

When instal routines give us a prompt like this, we are usually
able to /Browse to the correct folder (disk and drive.) Repost
telling us whether you can / Browse to the right location.

I was unable to browse or change the E:\ device but I am now
successful with the install because I removed the SATA/RAID PCI card.
It seems it was causing the halt of install even though there were no
drives attached.

The only problem I see now is "Multimedia Audio Controller" unable to
find driver and remains with the big yellow Question mark. I am using
an Intel D845GVB desktop board. I have downloaded and installed
drivers I thought would fix this from the Intel site but I can locate
them after they unzipped.

Still looking...............

On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 13:26:43 -0600, yukonron
wrote:


One other thing you can do is delete the partition that you want to
install to by pressing the L key when prompted that way it will format
that partition before installing

I had tried that several times with the same results but as I posted
in previous post I have been successful with the install.

I am having difficulties getting my Netpromax DVR board recognized as
it has been some years since I first installed it and it now seems
Netpromax has gone belly up. Something to do with seeing "Netpromax
2ND Master in device manager but am missing a 2ND Slave appearance. I
may never get this fixed and after all the trouble I may just end up
replacing the old drive back in the system

In article , Allen Drake wrote:
On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 10:58:01 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
wrote:

"Allen Drake" wrote in message
. ..

I am trying a clean re-install of Win XP Pro but I get a message to
place CD in drive and access E:\i386 but E: is the drive I am
installing to and not a CD Rom. I am using the OEM disk that came with
the machine. I have searched Google for the same problem but I have
found nothing that fits my problem.

When instal routines give us a prompt like this, we are usually
able to /Browse to the correct folder (disk and drive.) Repost
telling us whether you can / Browse to the right location.

I was unable to browse or change the E:\ device but I am now
successful with the install because I removed the SATA/RAID PCI card.
It seems it was causing the halt of install even though there were no
drives attached.

The only problem I see now is "Multimedia Audio Controller" unable to
find driver and remains with the big yellow Question mark. I am using
an Intel D845GVB desktop board. I have downloaded and installed
drivers I thought would fix this from the Intel site but I can locate
them after they unzipped.

Still looking...............

Go here and run this utility. It will autodetect your intel motherboard and
will download the Sigmatel AC97 drivers for your board.

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect

On Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:29:58 GMT,
(GMAN) wrote:

In article , Allen Drake wrote:
On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 10:58:01 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
wrote:

"Allen Drake" wrote in message
...

I am trying a clean re-install of Win XP Pro but I get a message to
place CD in drive and access E:\i386 but E: is the drive I am
installing to and not a CD Rom. I am using the OEM disk that came with
the machine. I have searched Google for the same problem but I have
found nothing that fits my problem.

When instal routines give us a prompt like this, we are usually
able to /Browse to the correct folder (disk and drive.) Repost
telling us whether you can / Browse to the right location.

I was unable to browse or change the E:\ device but I am now
successful with the install because I removed the SATA/RAID PCI card.
It seems it was causing the halt of install even though there were no
drives attached.

The only problem I see now is "Multimedia Audio Controller" unable to
find driver and remains with the big yellow Question mark. I am using
an Intel D845GVB desktop board. I have downloaded and installed
drivers I thought would fix this from the Intel site but I can locate
them after they unzipped.

Still looking...............

Go here and run this utility. It will autodetect your intel motherboard and
will download the Sigmatel AC97 drivers for your board.

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect

Thanks GMAN but I have been there and done that and the section that
is for "Audio Driver for Intel Desktop Board" where it shows product
detected and current driver installed is blank.

I download and run the application and manually and it refuses with a
message that says "Device Object not present, restart the system and
run setup again" but no success no matter what.

It sure seems like I am missing something here.