Question about Windows install issue

[cwilliamsws6]

My grandpa passed away a few months ago and one of the things I inherited was his hoard of PC parts. 10 or so old motherboards, 20 or so brand new in box AMD Athlon XPs, a bucket of assorted PCI cards, 30 or so CD drives, and enough hard drives to start my own server farm I swear. I got a beige ATX case on eBay and using some of these parts I built a functioning PC. I had to solder new capacitors onto the motherboard as most of the old ones were bulging but it works! Well, at least it powers on for now.. Powered by an Athlon XP 2600(?), has 3 CD burners, 2 hard drives, a soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS complete with the 5.25" front interface panel, and 2 ATI Rage 3D video cards! Only issue I am running into is getting Windows installed. Every time I try to install it, it keeps running into this one .DLL file on the disc it can't copy over for some reason. It lets me hit enter to retry but after so many retries it just BSODs and I'm back to square one. It gives me the option to skip that file and keep going but I'm weary on trying it. Should I try another XP install disc or could I try skipping the uncopyable files and once everything else is installed I could run startup repair to try and copy what got missed on the first go?

 

[javacontour]

Without saying what the DLL is, it's hard to help. Different media or create a USB stick to install it? So yeah, if you have another XP install disk. Or use a different CD/DVD drive. Other than that, make the machine as simple as possible for the install. On board graphics, no sound, no "dozens" of extra hardware bits. Given you are installing parts that may or may not be good, you want the smallest bit of hardware to get a good OS installed first before you start adding more variables to the problem.

 

[shanneba]

Is the dll for the ATI video card driver? Have you tried the XP install with just one video card installed?

 

[javacontour]

I probably should have said this first, so let me repeat. Make the machine as simple as possible for the install. On board graphics, no sound, no "dozens" of extra hardware bits. Given you are installing parts that may or may not be good, you want the smallest bit of hardware to get a good OS installed first before you start adding more variables to the problem.

 

[cwilliamsws6]

The DLL is nothing driver related, it's something to do with windows. If I try to boot the PC as it is, I get the black screen that [whatever].DLL is missing, press any key to restart. I was gonna try the USB route but this motherboard doesn't allow boot from USB, only boot from floppy, hdd, cd, or PXE boot over ethernet. When I get home I'll make the PC as "barebones" as possible and try it again, if it fails I'll try another install media. I know I have a few other XP CDs in my desk.

 

[FastGame]

Why are you trying to use XP ? it's way outdated and you won't even get the new install updated let alone trying to find drivers. Try one of the lighter 32bit Linux distro's, all are better than XP. antiX and Lubuntu are two of the best, IMHO. https://antixlinux.com/ https://lubuntu.me/

 

[blupupher]

What is your intended use for this computer? I can only see it being either a project to do using the parts you have for sentimental reasons or as a very basic web surfing computer. Either way, I agree with FastGame, look into a Linux install. While I am not a huge Linux fan (have tried it multiple times in the past), it will get the computer working and usable.

 

[sdowney717]

XP disc is damaged and or the DVD drive reader is damaged. Most likely install disc is no good. Why not learn Linux, put Linux Mint on it. Why bother with XP, it is ancient history.

 

[cwilliamsws6]

I want to use Windows XP so it's all period-correct, and I ultimately plan to use this computer to run old CD-ROM games that for whatever reason my current Windows 10-based rig refuses to. I don't plan to give the computer any actual internet connectivity aside from the ability of remote desktop so I can use it via my Windows 10 computer. I know I could just make a virtual machine of XP on my new PC for that but it's not the same as the real thing. Yes, I am using the parts to build a computer mainly for sentimental reasons, I know my grandpa knew I always liked old computers and building one with these parts is what he would have wanted. I'm just doing it for S&G to see what I can make all the components do . I will toss in one of my other 30 CD drives tonight and take out all the unnecessary components and try to reinstall Windows again.

 

[sdowney717]

Does the error message allow an alternative file location? Maybe you can download that dll. Maybe you can construct your own XP install disc. Not sure, but see if you can copy these files into a folder on win 10. then if you can create a bootable iso file write it to a new disc. People used to slipstream new files into windows install discs. Other thing is I have had discs fail to read multiple files, and once you get past one, another, then another pops up.

 

[SirTanon]

If it's unable to load/read the one .dll file, then my first thought would be a problem with the XP CD. If it were the drive, I'd expect errors with other files, and at random points. If you have access to another one, I'd try using that.

 

[javacontour]

Any follow up on this?