Need Help - not notebook related

Hey all, I just put a new hard drive in my Dell Dimension 2400, and I am giving it to my grandfather. I am trying to install Windows XP on it from the disks given to me when I got the computer. It says that it is looking for a file called "asms" and the only file on that disk with that name is a folder, so there is no file. Is there a way that I can get this to install, or reformat the hard drive. It is IDE so I cant use it as an external to reformat it, but I was wondering if there was anything I can do.

 

I don't know what you mean here.

Is this harddrive blank, or is it an old drive that was previously formated and partitioned?

 

Not sure about the "asms" thing. But you could either stick the drive into another computer or buy a cheap IDE/SATA/USB adapter for formatting.

I don't think formatting is going to help your install. If you have an "asms" folder and you see nothing, do you have show hidden files turned on? You may have a dirty or scratched CD or the CD drive may not be reading correctly.

Here is a thread discussing the problem.

 

the asms issue can occur if
a) your drive is partitioned and formatted as fat32
b) you are installing windows over itself
c) the windows cd was improperly burned or is dirty

if it is A or B, completely removing the partition and reinstalling from scratch during XP installation can solve the problem. If C, you need a new cd or clean the old one.

That's why I was wondering if the other drive was perhaps from an old machine

 

Sorry about that, I tried to repost that I fixed the problems but the forums seemed to be down. All I had to do was put the CD in the bottom cd drive, unplug the drive and then plug it back in. Installed fine after that.

 

So it was cd drive not reading ... good you got it.