[chinchilla]

Hi, it's been almost a month since I've tried to clean install Windows XP SP3 from a bootable USB, and nothing works. This is my problem (beware: noob ingenuity):

1. I have a Dell Inspiron Mini10 (v) that came with XP SP3 pre-installed. (No CD drive, only USB, of course)

2. I installed Ubuntu in a partition.

3. I didn't like Ubuntu and found no way to uninstall and get rid of the partition, so accidentally (impulsively) I deleted the partition where I thought Ubuntu was, but instead I deleted Windows!

4. On another computer I've made bootable usb's from the "CD reinstallation with XP SP3" but *only from this CD*, which I think is my mistake. I've followed the tutorials on this site, on this site / and on youtube, and it NEVER WORKS:

5. While installing (the HD got 100% formatted in ntfs the first time, then in FAT), I get the famous errors "missing hal.dll" and "no computer system and hardware error".

6. With no OS, my last try was to install a newer version of Ubuntu (12) and now formatted with FAT, just to see if there was any hardware failure, but the installation went ok.

7. However, I still don't want Ubuntu and instead want a full and clean installation of my original system. I have the 3 CDs that came with the computer: "Operating System XP SP3", "DELL drivers and utilities" and "Dell Application". I think the bootable usb doesn't work because it doesn't contain the files from the other two CDs.

So my question is:

Can I make a bootable USB from these 3 CDs and **HOW**?

Thanks in advance. This is sooooo frustrating.

[rrfranczak3]

the other CD's will not help you, you should only need the XP SP3 disk, just search for 'winsetupfromusb' its a utility, you will need a nearby PC with a DVD drive, use that utility to create the USB drive, but I think that the files need to be in an .iso format for the utility to work correctly, a program like MagicISO will create the .iso file for you from your XP CD, just google for it, once you have the .iso file created then use the setup utility mention above and create the USB drive....

[chinchilla]

Hi, haha, don't roll yr eyes yet. I've done what you mention so many times that I've lost count I always get either "hal.dll missing" or the other common message when the 2nd part of installation is supposed to start. I just can't get past these and I've followed the solutions on this forum but they're not working for me (changing bios values, switching usb sticks...). I've tried with .iso's of XP SP1, 2 and 3... nothing. That's why I thought maybe I needed the Dell drivers that are on the other CD. I can install ubuntu, though, so I'm sure it's not a hardware failure.

[rrfranczak3]

no, the drivers have nothing to do with it:

try checking these out:

How To Fix Missing Hal.dll Errors in Windows XP

OR

https://www.google.com/search?q=hal....ient=firefox-a

[chinchilla]

Thanks... I'll try these.