More XP fun

[Jtalk4456]

I have a panasonic toughbook I'm trying to fix up. It originally had a DLL missing error, so i got a win xp disc to restore with. It won't restore. It seemed to be a bad hdd, so i got a new hdd for it (PATA 40gb, and that's an upgrade from the 30gb that was there! XD) Now I'm trying to install xp on it, but it keeps looping in the installation. It's getting to the screen shown below and it got

through copying files just fine then expanding. It gets mostly through installing features too, but like most installs it stops and has to restart to continue and says it will pick up where it left off. When it comes back up, it immediately checks off copying files, as it should, but then starts expanding again from 0% like it never did it. It again gets part through installing features and restarts and repeats. Any advice or is this thing just beyond repair?

 

[Tabs]

Isn't this supposed to be a Windows XP install? That's an installation screen for Windows Vista. 

 

XP install screens look like this: 

 

 

[Kdog]

I believe that's either a 7 or a Vista install, not XP.

[Jtalk4456]

13 minutes ago, Tabs said:

Isn't this supposed to be a Windows XP install? That's an installation screen for Windows Vista. 

 

XP install screens look like this: 

 

 

it's not the one that came with the computer it was bought, maybe that's why the UI is different

[Tabs]

4 minutes ago, Jtalk4456 said:

it's not the one that came with the computer it was bought, maybe that's why the UI is different

It's definitely not Windows XP at all. It's unlikely that either Vista (or, as @Kdog said, 7) would be happy on a machine with only 40GB of storage since the rest of the hardware is likely not powerful enough to run it properly.

 

Edit: The easiest way to tell for sure without getting into anything too technical is to look at the size of the Windows installer you downloaded. XP is below 700MB. Vista/7/8/10 are all above 2.5GB at least. I'm 99.95% certain that's not an XP install.

Edited July 7, 2018 by Tabs
more info

[Jtalk4456]

It's been way too long since I used xp apparently. This is the disc I have and what it says it is installing 

[Tabs]

2 minutes ago, Jtalk4456 said:

It's been way too long since I used xp apparently. This is the disc I have and what it says it is installing 

 

 

What the heck kind of monstrosity is that? Has someone collected an XP install - an operating system with no hardware-agnostic mechanisms - using imageX or Dism, generated an installer and used it as an image source from a Windows Vista/7 disc?

 

That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot.

 

You need to abandon that ASAP. Get a normal XP install image, not some hacked together frankenstaller.

[Jtalk4456]

1 minute ago, Tabs said:

What the heck kind of monstrosity is that? Has someone collected an XP install - an operating system with no hardware-agnostic mechanisms - using imageX or Dism, generated an installer and used it as an image source from a Windows Vista/7 disc?

 

That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot.

 

You need to abandon that ASAP. Get a normal XP install image, not some hacked together frankenstaller.

the guy didn't have the original xp disc so my wife ordered an xp install disk off amazon. so you think this is a crap disc, then? Just so i can learn to identify myself, what about the disk looks off to you. You mentioned getting an install image and using that, but isn't that what I would do anyways? get the install files in an iso and mount the image to a disc so i can boot from it?

[Tabs]

7 minutes ago, Jtalk4456 said:

the guy didn't have the original xp disc so my wife ordered an xp install disk off amazon. so you think this is a crap disc, then? Just so i can learn to identify myself, what about the disk looks off to you. You mentioned getting an install image and using that, but isn't that what I would do anyways? get the install files in an iso and mount the image to a disc so i can boot from it?

Windows XP uses an entirely different setup process from Windows Vista and above. Windows Vista+ use a system called imagex or DISM to "capture" an image, make it serviceable, and allow it to be maintained - all without the underlying software (the operating system in this case) needing to be configured first for a specific set of hardware.

 

Windows XP does not work like that. At all. It cannot be imaged because it has no way of being generalized for new hardware. That install image is basically tied to the machine the image was captured from, and that's at least one reason why it won't install on your pc.

 

That is one of the craziest things I have ever seen. I'm not exaggerating. The install mechanisms for XP and Vista+ are inherently incompatible. This is not an official installer - in case you were curious. I would get a refund ASAP.

 

The difference with using a legitimate installer is that it would be... legitimate. It would work to install Windows XP the way Windows XP is meant to be installed. Windows XP doesn't work based on Windows Imaging Format (.wim) files like Vista+, it has sparse files and becomes tied to the installed hardware during setup.

 

In fact, I don't even think Windows XP will work if installed on a drive formatted as NTFS by the Vista+ installer due to minor versioning differences.

 

Edit: I am struggling to comprehend the thought process someone went through to generate this disc. It requires someone technically quite competent to capture and generate a .wim file for an operating system - to be able to do that and yet get the absolute basic aspect of installing an older OS wrong is just... mind boggling. Literally the craziest thing I've seen, for many, many years. 

 

I think this might have broken me. Send help.

Edited July 7, 2018 by Tabs
Why

[Jtalk4456]

2 minutes ago, Tabs said:

Windows XP uses an entirely different setup process from Windows Vista and above. Windows Vista+ use a system called imagex or DISM to "capture" an image, make it serviceable, and allow it to be maintained - all without the underlying software (the operating system in this case) needing to be configured first for a specific set of hardware.

 

Windows XP does not work like that. At all. It cannot be imaged because it has no way of being generalized for new hardware. That install image is basically tied to the machine the image was captured from, and that's at least one reason why it won't install on your pc.

 

That is one of the craziest things I have ever seen. I'm not exaggerating. The install mechanisms for XP and Vista+ are inherently incompatible. This is not an official installer - in case you were curious. I would get a refund ASAP.

 

the difference with using a legitimate installer is that it would be... legitimate. It would work to install Windows XP the way Windows XP is meant to be installed. Windows XP doesn't work based on Windows Imaging Format (.wim) files like Vista+, it has sparse files and becomes tied to the installed hardware during setup.

 

In fact, I don't even think Windows XP will work if installed on a drive formatted as NTFS by the Vista+ installer due to minor versioning differences.

OK so the question besides getting a refund on this is how do I get XP installed on this drive. can you link me to a legitimate install?

[Tabs]

2 minutes ago, Jtalk4456 said:

OK so the question besides getting a refund on this is how do I get XP installed on this drive. can you link me to a legitimate install?

Windows XP images aren't available from Microsoft any more, as it's an unsupported operating system. 

 

Here's a link to the valid sha1 hashes for the legitimate Windows XP SP3 English retail iso. I can't link you to an iso, but this hash can be used by you to verify any downloads you access.

 

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/windows/en-US/2e249741-3ed8-4ec5-a2b9-99665805f5fb