[JTech]

Bios always recognises hard drive(s). Dos says "invalid drive specification" when any drive letter other than 'A' is entered.
Windows 6 floppy start up always bombs out on 5th disc ("an internal set up error has occurred" - or similar comment). Windows single floppy approach will set up CD (to boot from I386 on CD Disc) but when executed comes up with "no place for swap file"
2 hard drives, a WD 40g & a Samsung 80g have been tried with various formating/partitioning - latest 10g & 20g FAT32 primary partitions respectively.
When hard drives are installed in another PC, and dos booted (using exactly same floppy) primary positions show under 'C' as normal.
(Flash & Bios have been updated but made no difference). Any ideas welcome

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Some information about the hardware would be nice, as well as the Windows version you are using. There is no such thing as Windows 6.

[Digerati]

Some information about the hardware would be nice, as well as the Windows version you are using. There is no such thing as Windows 6.

[JTech]

Sorry if not clear. The '6' refers to the 6 disc floppy start up procedure for XP Pro. (Operating sys is noted in left hand margin)
Biostar board

[rshaffer61]

Is this a upgrade to XP Pro or a full version?
If using a cdrom version why not boot to the cdrom and load XP Pro straight from it?
Is it an original genuine version or a burned copy?
How much memory total
Why are you setting up XP Pro up on a Fat32 instead of NTFS?
Is this a name brand or clone system?

[Digerati]

Operating sys is noted in left hand margin

Sorry, but I cannot assume that is the same computer. Many people have several computers, all with different this or different that, or they may be posting about some other computer they are working with, like Dear Ol' Mom's.

Since you have another computer available, I think I would try to install Windows using those floppies to one of those drives on it , just to see if the installation will complete through the entire 6 floppy set. Floppies, like all magnetic medium, do go bad. If that works, Install the Recovery Console to that disk, move it to the original PC. Upon first boot, watch the screen and follow the prompt to enter the Recovery Console. Cross fingers and hope a repair will reset that Windows installation to that computer's hardware.

Of course, if the installation fails using those floppies on your hard drive in a different "host" computer, then you have bad floppies.

Biostar has produced 100s of motherboards over many years for both AMD and Intel processors of all architectures. Knowing the motherboard model number tells us the type RAM (DDR, DDR2, DDR3), brand and type/class CPU, type drives (SATA or EIDE). It also allows us to read your manuals, and learn something about the age of the hardware (not that XP on floppies is not a clue! ).

How much RAM is installed? Have you tried NTFS instead of FAT32?

Do you know this to be a good motherboard/computer otherwise? Have you tested the RAM? You might try installing Linux on it, just to see if it will install and run with no issues.

[Digerati]

rshaffer took advantage of my slow typing, but we seem to be thinking much they same way.

[rshaffer61]

[JTech]

Digerati/Rshaffer61:
Belated sincere thanks guys for your time & effort in getting me on a solution track.
Placing ‘Recovery’ on to the hard drive did not assist, machine boot continued to recognise the drive, but DOS showed only ‘A’. More success was had putting ‘recovery’ on to a CD, that was until the programme demanded a password (and to the best of my memory I have never password protected my XP installation)!
But after this, and trying a couple of other variations, DOS suddenly recognised the hard drive, and, as they say the rest is history.
On the question of FAT/NTFS I was originally on NTFS, but in all my surfing on the problem (before 'joining Geeks) there was plenty of comment on DOS not liking large drives & NTFS so that was when I partitioned and went to FAT - to try and get DOS to accept the drive. Again many thanks.

[rshaffer61]

Congratulations. for a successful resolution for your issue. I am happy everything has been worked out for you. With that being said I am happy to say:


You are very welcome. I'm glad we could help and please let us know how everything works out for you.
If there is anything else we can do to help please feel free to ask. I appreciate that you allowed us to assist you with your issue and for your patience. Thank you for choosing GeeksToGo for help.
This issue now appears to be resolved.


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