Windows instillation problem

[Django1]

Hi

I've been using a copy of windows xp on my old PC (9 years old) for a while now. Problem is, because it's not activated I been having to reinstalling it every 30 days. Pain in the a.

Someone on a forum (not this one) sent me a windows xp service pack. I attempted to install this on the PC. During the installation quiet a few messages appeared on screen saying that such and such a file is not present or readable. Anyway I just pressed escape each time and it carried on installing. A mistake on my part.

It did install to a point, "the preparing installation" phase. But a message is now on screen saying

"Isass.exe - unable to locate component. This application has failed to start because LSASRV.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

Okay. So I try re-install the SP disc. Nothing happens. Then I try install the copy of XP I'd been using and nothing happens.

In a nutshell The "press any key to boot from cd" message does not appear when I put the disc in the drive like it always did. It just loads up goes to the Isass.exe message above and stops.

I'd be happy enough just re-install the old un activated version of XP but now I can't seem to do that. Any ideas people?

 

[Fanatic4Christ]

just a question, have you tried going into the bios menu and making sure its still set to boot from cd? 1st

 

[Django1]

How do you do that?

 

[berry120]

It should say what key to press as it's booting up - it'll usually be something like F1, F2 or delete, so try those and see what happens. You then want to find your boot settings, and make sure boot from CD is at the top of the list.

 

[Django1]

I pressed the tab key and can view the AMIBIOS page. I can't see anything about boot settings.

 

[berry120]

There should be a few sections you can scroll through, have you tried looking in all of them? There's almost definitely more than one page there...

 

[jmacavali]

First, get your self an activated 'legal' version.

Second, make sure your CD drive didn't fail. If you get in the bios it should have, some where, the options to adjust the boot order.

You should also be able to press F8 (i think) to go to the boot menu in Windows and choose what to boot from.

Or you could get a free OS (Ubuntu) and not worry about it.