As u can see from my CPU/ram statistics, my server is a pretty slow machine. My current O.S is XP professional but its giving me that ugly BLUE error screen on the user log on menu with the following message *** Hardware Malfunction call your hardward vendor for support NMI: ParityCheck / Memory parity error *** the system hs halted *** Basically i can no longer log on to my computer becasue as soon as the userlogon screen loads up, within ONE second, the blue screen pops up and my machine freezes. I talked to some people working for IBM corp. about this problem and they all said that my machine wasnt fast enough and i needed to install a server OS that would require less ram to operate. SO here is my dillema. I have the Windows 2000 professional cd but my XP wont let me install it. everytime i run the Cd it gives me the following. "this CD-ROM is from an older version of Windows than the one you are presently using. Setup functionality from this disk will be disabled." Ive even tried to right click on my cd rom and 'explore' rather than auto-run teh cd and it still gives me the same message when i try to run Setup.exe. How can i degrade to the 2000 server os?! PLEASE HELP!!!!! - CHEERS!

Sounds like you need to format the HDD and do a clean install of windows 2000. You'll probably need the windows 2000 pro bootdisks in order to do it which can be found here http://www.svrops.com/svrops/dwnlddisk.htm Hope this helps some.. Got Geek?

If you can boot to cd, boot to the 2000 cd, where it will lete you delete the xp partition before installin w2k

Download and run a memory tester like Memtest86. Install to and run off a floppy from a command prompt. Sounds like you may have a bad memory module.

OtheHill is the only one who called the problem accurately. You have a physical ram problem. I would highly suggest you take the ram out and down to a local computer shop that can test memory. Replace the faulty module and you will be fine. 600mhz is a bit slow for xP as well as 256ram. these hardware specs are better suited for 98 or ME than XP though if you want to run 2000 that would be my choice.

I stumbled upon this forum because I am experiencing the same issue. I am posting as to save you time and avoid the suggestions that have been listed here. You DO NOT have a physical RAM problem unless all four of my machines have a problem with their RAM too. Your only problem is Microsoft/WinXP. You will have to use the boot discs.

Note: If you have Windows Xp installed with NTFS 5(.1) so will this cause probs. if you install 2000 on that partion. 2000 deals best with NTFS 5.0 than 5.1. 256mb on a XP machine? Get ready for some swaping to the hdd then...