BSOD when installing Windows Server 2003 on a old laptop

[ijwcomp]

Hi!

I have a problem with my old laptop, a Acer Extensa 710DX (Pentium II 233MHz with MMX, 160MB Memory, and a NeoMagic MagicGraph 128XD 2 MB Video and

ESS Meastro II sound. Anyway... it came with Windows 95. The CD-Drive is not working that well, it will only recognize the original Recovery CD (with Windows 95) and the software that came with it. All other CD's either fail to work or if I'm very lucky, it would actually read the disk.

So after some difficulty, I managed to network Windows 95 to my XP computer using a crossover cable and as such, I copied the XP (SP3) and 2003 (R2) CD's into the laptop's hard drive.

Okay, you may ask why do I want XP or 2003 on a 233MHz laptop??? Well, a few years ago, somehow I installed XP and it worked... but then someone made it really slow, sluggish and yea.. it was time for a reformat. Anyway, the main reason is that I want to use the laptop to use a wireless connection (USB) which Windows 95 does not support very well. It uses the 'system generic' drivers so I can't use Windows 2000 to configure the wireless. Only XP, 2003 has the "View Available Wireless Network" thing..

I launched the setup from the HDD using Windows 95 for Windows XP. It froze on the Setup is Installing Windows part.. Thinking that it was a bit slow I left it there for a hour.. and still.. it was still there at the same screen... Although if I turned it off and left it off overnight and attempt to start the setup the next day, it got past that without a problem.. at least till it restarted and it froze just before the XP logo started up.. Safe mode was the same, last thing I saw was mup.sys (I think).

Server 2003 was nearly the same as XP but I got a STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x8103DC40, 0xFC1FEB9C, 0xFC1FE898) just right after the Windows is Starting Windows part.

The strange thing is that Windows 95 works flawlessly.. except that the network (from a PC Card) is a bit shaky at times and USB flash disks don't work and the wireless connection doesn't support Windows 95.

I really want to keep this laptop so I can chat to people, a bit of web browsing, maybe a bit of Skyping or just finish that random word document that is due tom (nothing like video editing (like I do with my actual computer) XD...)

Thanks in advance for any help...

Edited to fix some typos..

Edited January 28, 2009 by ijwcomp

[jaclaz]

Server 2003 was nearly the same as XP but I got a STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x8103DC40, 0xFC1FEB9C, 0xFC1FE898) just right after the Windows is Starting Windows part.

I would try XP rather than 2003, and would also nlite it.

I would also try with a "gold" or SP1 XP rather than SP2 or SP3.

About the error, possibly is similar to this one:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330182/en-us

jaclaz

[ijwcomp]

Does XP gold/XP SP1 have WPA support and the View Available Wireless Networks? Because the wireless adapter I'm using does not have a configuration manager which means I have to use the "View Available Wireless Networks" to actually type in the password.

In summary:

Is the "View Available Wireless Networks" option available in XP gold/XP SP1 or is there an alternative way to do this?

Does XP gold/XP SP1 support WPA?

And yes, it is similar to the link you gave me, jaclaz. Although it did not say anything underneath STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x8103DC40, 0xFC1FEB9C, 0xFC1FE898).

Not enough space to run XP/2003? I got 2 partitions (FAT32) with two partitions, 1 has 3.30GB/7.36GB free (Windows 95) and the other has 29.1GB/29.8GB free.

The computer BIOS might be incompatible with Windows XP, or it might have to be updated... XP worked before, I'm certain of that.

The video adapter drivers might be incompatible with Windows XP. I did not use nLite on XP or Server 2003 and it uses the Windows generic drivers anyway..

A device driver or a system service might be damaged. Not sure about that but it shouldn't be as it was copied to the laptop's HDD using the computer's DVD drive which works perfectly fine...

If the issue is associated with the Win32k.sys file, it might be caused by a third-party remote control program. I don't have any remote control programs!

But yes, it does happen after the first restart during Windows Setup or after Setup is complete.

Thanks..