17th September 2002
Question: I'm trying to install Windows XP and for some reason it stops responding while it is trying to copy files. My friend told me to use a DOS boot disk to install Windows XP, but is that causing the problem?
Answer: Actually that may be the cause of the problem. If you booted off that DOS boot disk and it didn't have something called smartdrv on it or if smartdrv has certain switches turned on then the Windows XP installation may hang. One fix is to make sure your DOS boot disk runs the smartdrv command without any switches. You may have to modify your autoexec.bat to edit how smartdrv is run. For more information on how to run setup from MS- DOS in Windows XP then please read Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - Q307848. I will propose that you use a different fix, and that is to run setup by booting off the Windows XP CD, assuming you have a bootable CD-ROM drive. You may need to modify your BIOS setting to reflect this and I would refer you to your system documentation for the steps on changing boot devices. Once you boot off the Windows XP CD then you shouldn't have this problem anymore and you can choose any number of install options.