<div>
Well, personally I think nLite is a pretty crap product and I hear of plenty of people with your problems after/while using it.<br />
<br />
I'll offer that even if nlite has absolutely nothing to do with it, it should not be used on a machine that you want to have remain stable, period. &nbsp;and well, anyone who says otherwise needs to do their research because you probably haven't looked into what happens behind the scenes...but enough on that.<br />
<br />
If it were me and someone handed me the laptop, I'd do 2 things:<br />
<br />
[1] Backup the entire system right now, using Acronis True Image, or whatever full disk imaging software you can find<br />
<br />
[2] I would obtain the original Dell CD to reinstall everything via their instructions or use their partition they include on certain models for recovery options and see if you can start over using their utility.<br />
<br />
If you can or can't, that would lead to my step 3, but it depends on what the results for step 2 are. &nbsp;If everything does work fine going the original Dell recovery route, leave it at that or if you don't want all the Dell garbage that they include, try this:<br />
<br />
Blow everything on the system away, and make sure you have the proper driver to recognize the disk so the OS can load. &nbsp;Slipstream SP2 in there (I personally don't use SP3 yet, but whatever) using a utility like <a href="http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=223562" rel="ugc">http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=223562</a>&nbsp;if you don't want to do it manually.<br />
<br />
Burn the CD, blow away your old Windows partition, format quickly using an NTFS partition and let the install commence. &nbsp;You should not get 200 errors going this route. &nbsp;If it can't copy, then yeah, you could have some sort of bad drive and you should test that drive out.<br />
<br />
Loading XP from a USB drive? &nbsp;Never did something like that to be honest. &nbsp;Closest I did was use the UBCD4WIN and you can actually install Windows XP from a Windows-XP-ish interface as long as you've got the path somewhere around. &nbsp;Normally the machines I work on have 2 DVD drives so I boot up the UBCD4WIN in 1 and pop the XP CD in the other. &nbsp;See if you get any errors. &nbsp;Heck, if you get errors booting the system up with a BartPE or OBCD4WIN Cd in there, you've got some other issues.<br />
<br />
Hope some of that helps you out.<br />

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<div>
Quick comments:<br />
1) The system was backed up an wiped before the first install began; the deleting of old partitions and creation of a new one all went flawlessly<br />
2) If my kid had the original install disk I would sure be going that route, although I like a clean XP install much better. He, being age 19, does not. No clue where it might be.<br />

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<div>
Another way you could do this is (I haven't done this in a LONG time nor with XP) is to patition the disk into two drives and copy the I386 directory and any needed drivers to the second partion. (might need to have the second partition setup as fat32. Boot to an old windows 98 floppy or bootable CD (I have a CD I made up years ago that essentially has the win98 bootable disk on it along with Powerquest Drive image (PQIMGCTR) and partiontion magic to server as a rescue disk as floppie drives are becoming extinct) If the problem is in the hardware where files can't copy from the CD to the HDD (it would all depend on how old the CD ROM drive is and if it is not running optimally) then this might be a good alternative to getting the OS intalled. Later you could format the second partion to NTFS. My basic computer setup strategy is to have all the OS and program configuration on C and then have all my data on D. Then I periodically use the Powerquest (or you could use ghost, acronis etc.) to make a backup of the OS. It becomes real easy to revert to the backup in case of spyware or to &quot;uninstall&quot; some game/application that you wanted to try out.
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<div>
or install from your xp cd without slipstreaming :<br />
make a cd with the disk driver<br />
start the isntall; hit F6 when asked for<br />
when the install looks for the disk driver , take out the xp cd, and insert your driver cd<br />
after that, insert the xp cd, and continue
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<div>
go into teh bios and turn off either sata support or AHCI support depends on your machine, then you can install straight from a regular xp install disc and add the sata driver once the OS is loaded
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<div>
OP,<br />
<br />
Based on your 2 comments back to us, if you can basically do partition operations and the like, but only run into problems when you actually install Windows XP, then it's time to look at the drive you are installing it from.<br />
<br />
I mean, if you're simply getting a ton of copy errors, then I'd simply look at the drive that's trying to read the disk.<br />
<br />
If there's issues with installing XP, it can still be a variety of issues, like RAM problems (you could run a free Memtest), a bad disk (when it hits a certain spot) or a bad optical drive.<br />

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okay -- after multiple more attempts, i solved it. If you look up at the OP, you'll discover that it wouldn't accept an install from an XP Pro install disk (pre SP), so it had to be slipstreamed.<br />
<br />
<br />
The issue turned out to be that the xp source files were corrupt, although nlite seemed to be chugging along happily. Since I'd tried everything else, I recopied the files from my backup to the loacation I was pointing nlite to, and it went like a charm. I'm really glad it was the simplest solution. :-)
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<div>
It goes to show that when troubleshooting an issue NEVER take anything for granted. Always start out with the simplest things (i.e. is it plugged in?) In this case it was do I have a good sourse disk. In trouble shooting you want to eliminate as many variables as possible. (I guess this is probably pretty obvious advice, but I have to keep reminding myself when I try to fix things.)
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<div>
Thanks for the update - glad you got it taken care of :)<br />

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<div>
Richz607 --<br />
<br />
Since the source files I'd copied from CD to the hard drive worked flawlessly with an install a couple of days ago, it never occurred to me that a second nlite pass might corrupt them and they might need to be refreshed. 
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<div>
<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
I am attempting to reformat my son's laptop, and have one big screwed up mess.<br />
<br />
the situation: I successfully used my copy of WinXP Pro slipstreamed with SP 3 to reformat a new Dell XPS laptop back down to XP. Went seamlessly and quickly. Since I slipstreamed in SATA drivers for that install, I started from scratch in NLITE, reslipstreamed the service pack, burned the ISO to CD, and began the reformat. The first time through, I got a ramdisk.sys error, so I deleted that from the nlite install and started over again.<br />
<br />
Upon that install, and 4 subsequent ones, when it gets to the install part, there are several hundred files which is says &quot;system cannot copy.&quot;<br />
I finally did a completely vanilla nlite slipstream, with no tweaks whatsover, and it still threw up over 200 errors.<br />
I persisted to the end of the install, but it won't get me even as far as installing the ethernet controller, because it says windows installer service cannot be accessed.<br />
<br />
I tried re-registering windows installer, tried the 4.5 hotpatch, and tried removing and replacing installer files, none of which worked. <br />
<br />
So I tried using my original winxp disk to do a repair, which of course it would not do. So I am attempting to do a reformat with that disk, and then manually apply all the upgrades. It gets part way through, then throws up a stop error at 0x0000007e, [co/sus. adress F786BOBF<br />
<br />
This is a Dell Latitude 820. It will still limp into the windows install currently on it, (the NLITE one which is faulty) so I updated the BIOS to A09, which didn't help.<br />
<br />
One other clue seems to be that the dvd-rw drive only detests the install cds, either one of them, about half the time, so I don't know if it's a faulty drive. Would it work to put the nlite ISO on a flash key?
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</div>


I am attempting to reformat my son's laptop, and have one big screwed up mess.

the situation: I successfully used my copy of WinXP Pro slipstreamed with SP 3 to reformat a new Dell XPS laptop back down to XP. Went seamlessly and quickly. Since I slipstreamed in SATA drivers for that install, I started from scratch in NLITE, reslipstreamed the service pack, burned the ISO to CD, and began the reformat. The first time through, I got a ramdisk.sys error, so I deleted that from the nlite install and started over again.

Upon that install, and 4 subsequent ones, when it gets to the install part, there are several hundred files which is says "system cannot copy."
I finally did a completely vanilla nlite slipstream, with no tweaks whatsover, and it still threw up over 200 errors.
I persisted to the end of the install, but it won't get me even as far as installing the ethernet controller, because it says windows installer service cannot be accessed.

I tried re-registering windows installer, tried the 4.5 hotpatch, and tried removing and replacing installer files, none of which worked. 

So I tried using my original winxp disk to do a repair, which of course it would not do. So I am attempting to do a reformat with that disk, and then manually apply all the upgrades. It gets part way through, then throws up a stop error at 0x0000007e, [co/sus. adress F786BOBF

This is a Dell Latitude 820. It will still limp into the windows install currently on it, (the NLITE one which is faulty) so I updated the BIOS to A09, which didn't help.

One other clue seems to be that the dvd-rw drive only detests the install cds, either one of them, about half the time, so I don't know if it's a faulty drive. Would it work to put the nlite ISO on a flash key?

nlite install fails -- what to do now?

The Microsoft Legacy Operating System topic includes legacy versions of Microsoft operating systems prior to Windows 2000: All versions of MS-DOS and other versions developed for specific manufacturers and Windows 3/3.1, Windows 95 and Windows 98, plus any other Windows-related versions, and Windows Mobile.

Microsoft Legacy OS

This topic area includes legacy versions of Windows prior to Windows 2000: Windows 3/3.1, Windows 95 and Windows 98, plus any other Windows-related versions including Windows Mobile.

Windows OS

Microsoft Windows XP is the sixth release of the NT series of operating systems, and was the first to be marketed in a variety of editions: XP Home and XP Professional, designed for business and power users. The advanced features in XP Professional are generally disabled in Home Edition, but are there and can be activated. There were two 64-bit editions, an embedded edition and a tablet edition.