Resolved Solution to a disk read error occured when installing Windows XP!

Hi all. I was getting tired of running Windows Vista on my computer mostly because it was dreadfully slow and it was a resource hog. Despite all the performance tweaks I did to Vista all my games ran slow and after I installed Internet Explorer 8 my computer slowed down to a crawl. I got fed up with my slow Vista system and decided that I would back up all my data and perform a fresh install of Windows XP Pro.

I booted from the Windows XP CD and deleted and created a new partition. After that Windows formatted the harddrive and copied the Windows files. The computer then rebooted and wouldn't continue setup. I was greeted with a black screen with the following error message, A disk read error occured. Press ctrl+alt+del to restart. I was stuck on that message. I tried various troubleshooting steps to fix the problem but couldn't figure it out. I finally read online that Windows XP can only install on a harddrive thats less than 137 GB's in size. I had a 320 GB harddrive. So I created a new partition that was less than 137 GB's and low and behold Windows XP installed fine with no problems.

For those users who get this error message when you are trying to install Windows XP on a harddrive thats larger than 137 GB's, you have to create a partition thats smaller than 137 GB's to get Windows XP to install correctly.

So my question is why does Windows XP have to be installed on a harddrive thats smaller or has a partition thats less than 137 GB's? Is the behavior that I experienced by design or is it a Windows XP Operating System limitation? I would appreciate some information on this matter. Thanks!

 

If you slipstream SP2 to your XP cd the problem will go away and you can create one large drive if needed.

 

How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in Windows XP

In addition to Steves suggestion, I would also slipstream SP3 to get those updates integrated as well. First SP2, then SP3 (both need to be slipstreamed in sequence).

Slipstreaming Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Create Bootable CD

Slipstreaming Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Create Bootable CD

I don't know if you can slipstream RTM>SP2>SP3 before burning but I think so. (I already had a XP SP2 CD.)

Christer

 

Thanks guys. I already have a Windows XP SP2 slipstreamed CD. I'll slipstream SP3 on the CD as well. When XP setup asked what drive I wanted XP installed on, it showed my drive as being 320 GB's in size. It recognized the full size of my harddrive. I looked in my BIOS and my drive is listed their as being only 137 GB's in size. I guess that could explain the problem why I couldn't get XP to install on one large partition.

When I had Vista installed I had to expand my 137 GB partition in disk managment so that my entire drive (320 GB) was one partition. I'll look at the links but I am starting to think that my computers BIOS could be the cause of the problem.