Very Deprssing Xp Install Problem

[hairyeyeball]

Hi

I have a Sony U3 (the tiny little notebook they only released in Japan)
I have upgraded to a 40Gb fron a 20Gb HDD
256MB RAM
Crusoe 933Mhz Processor
Sony external USB (bootable) floppy drive
Sony external 4pin firewire (bootable) CDRW/DVD ROM drive

The problem(s) is this,
It wont install XP SP2 Pro
I get stop errors all over the place. It will boot from the CD but when it gives you the instal repair options (enter to instal, R to enter recovery etc) is when the errors start to occur.
The usual ones are
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA
These are the most common but do get a couple of others now and again. Also on a couple of the messages i've had it will say that its a ntfs.sys fault.
Sometimes it will let me foramt and or partition sometimes it wont, when it start copying setup files to the HD I can get a stop message at any point. Sometimes it gets upto 75-80% other times it just gets to 1-2% before the message appears.

I also have a set of recovery disks that are custom made in english by a company in the states as the original ones are in Japanese which I dont have. To run these you have to start in DOS to start the programme running (uses this command <cdrom drive>:/ghost/ghostpe.exe to start it going) i've tried this by downloading the DrDos floppy from bootdisk.com but it wont recognise my cd drive?! so cant even instal with them either.

I'm getting very depressed with this so can ANYONE HELP ME???
I'll be very grateful for any help
Thank you all
Trevor

[primesuspect]

Check the memory, first and foremost. Read this (http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=276).

[GrayFox]

run memtest your rams probably bad

www.memtest86.com

edit: prime beat me to it

[hairyeyeball]

How do I run memtest? I've tried but getting nowhere lol bit of a thicko is me

[Tex]

I use docmemory. Same sort of test really. It makes a boot floppy and you boot from it. A true mem test can't be run from windows as far as I know.

Are you booting from a floppy to use it?

Tex

[primesuspect]

If you read the article I sent you, it has very detailed instructions on how to download memtest, create a bootable disk, and run the program, and interpret the results. I can't give you any more detailed instructions than those.

[hairyeyeball]

I use docmemory. Same sort of test really. It makes a boot floppy and you boot from it. A true mem test can't be run from windows as far as I know.

Are you booting from a floppy to use it?

Tex
I'll try anything as long as I know how to make it work lol

Yeah was trying it with a floppy. tried booting straight from the disk and also tried it through DOS

Don't think i'm doing it right

[hairyeyeball]

If you read the article I sent you, it has very detailed instructions on how to download memtest, create a bootable disk, and run the program, and interpret the results. I can't give you any more detailed instructions than those.

Yeah I read all that butt where does this bit come into it Unzip the file and run the "runme.bat" file. It will run a batch program that prompts for a blank disk. Insert a blank disk and it will (very quickly) make a bootable floppy with Memtest on it. All you need to do is boot off of that floppy and memtest will start to run. runme.bat??? where do I run that???

[primesuspect]

Did you unzip the file? You should see a folder from the zip file. Inside the folder is a file called "RUNME"

double click that

[hairyeyeball]

Yeah unzipped it but all that was in the file was these

Install (ms-dos batch file)
Memtestp.bin (BIN file) and
Rawrite (dont know what file type that is, its not stated)

[primesuspect]

okay, run install

[hairyeyeball]

Thanks guys. Ran memtest (eventually) had loads of errors come up on it. will get some new ram and try again.

Thank you all for your time and patience :thumbsup: