Well a friend asks me to install a "fresh" XP on her

I don't think it has anything to do with the hard drive. Looks like either the laptop's memory or motherboard is faulty, or the CD is corrupted somehow. I'd propose to run Memtest86 on it for some time, and if possible boot some live CD to see if it's going to work or also be problematic.

Btw did it take 40 minutes to just get to the basic text-mode partition selection/format etc. menu? What was happening in the meantime?

>>57622898
>???o

Lel. It's still way more classy than Microsoft's recent stupid :( bluescreens or "something happened" messages.

>>57622898

Well she's never going to talk to you again after you bricked her dads laptop.

Good job

>>57622898
install a mint distro and set up a xp theme and call it a day.

>>57623663
I guess that's the risk you take when you agree to fix computers of family or acquaintances - anything breaks in the process (because why the fuck not) and "it's all your fault, anon".

>>57623687
Heck, even if you do a fine job and nothing breaks while you're at it, if something breaks later, they might be all like "hurr anon, you set it up last time and it broke, now fix it".

File: windows_to_usb_08.png (19KB, 636x614px) Image search: [Google]

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>>57622898

CD is probably shit, CDs are always shit, not to mention slow as christmas. We're in a situation with CDs and DVDs similar to what audio cassettes were in the late 2000's. Less people use optical media so manufacturing quality is in the toilet.

See if you can hack up a bootable USB version, there are tools like FlashBoot that will let you do it.

File: 1303449881124.jpg (23KB, 255x352px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 255x352px

>>57623682

>>57623606

That blue screen was on for like 40 minutes in, 2 lines appeared above ???o and that's all. Managed to get to the partitions, it responded really slow (1min or so delay after I pressed the arrow key).

>>57623654

Partition select were heart symbols I guess. Hearts only.

>>57623663

Her brother couldn't do shit so this was their last resort. I kind of do smell a bad hard drive, it's loud and ???o. Fuck that.

>>57623724
Had the CD somewhere around, couldn't bother to make a USB for it. Will try with it now, if the same thing happens I'll assume the hard drive is as good as dead.

>>57623911
You should have UBCD or Hiren's boot CD handy for situations like this (i.e. troubleshooting / checking hardware where no working OS is installed). As for the HDD, you want to check SMART for any failure indications and perhaps run a surface scan (MHDD is recommended for this). Apart from that, a Memtest run wouldn't be bad as graphical glitches that you described may be caused by memory errors (after all, whatever the condition of the HDD inside the laptop, it shouldn't affect the way characters are displayed onscreen).

>>57622898
Possibly bad RAM or a bad GPU (early 2000s laptops are susceptible to the latter, especially if they have ATi graphics). CPU may also be throttling itself hence slowness.