right, i really need someones help on this one!!!
i bought a compaq armada m700 of a mate recently and i wanted to install windows xp on it.(it was previously windows 98 and i have no 98 disks)how ever when i started up my laptop this one time it kept crashing, just freezing for no apparent reason.so i though right i'll install xp. When i booted it up it came up with the usual compaq logo however it didnt check the memory like it usuall does and then i got a message saying non system disk error, replace and strike any key, but there was no disk in the drive( i only have a cd / dvd drive, no floppy or anything.)so i restarted the laptop and put the xp disk in. it starts loading fine, checks all the files and then it comes to the dredded partitioning screen. whenever i try to delete or create a partition it comes up with messages such as page fault in non print area and also stop: 0x0000008e (0xc0000005, 0x807c6f65, 0xfc042630, 0x00000000 !!?. i tried the recovery console which takes you into msdos and checked tried to repartition in there, but same again. (by the way all the memory is in one partition)i then lost patience and tried to clear the hard drive via the format option in dos but this does nothing as it doesnt recognise the drive path and what have you. ive got a feeling it may be a hard drive issue but i want to try some checks before i invest in a new one, any ideas??.

Hi Barry, hi everyone

I think you would be better of in the Windows XP forum with this question.

As there awhile ago has been a discussion over here about misposting, it was suggested to report the mispostings as offensive. I thought that was a bit drastic, and suggested to point the poster to the appropriate forum.
So now I am living up to that suggestion. :-)

The discussion:
Justin - What do you think?
(http://www.computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/148244.html)

Good luck!

Best Regards from The Netherlands,
The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com