instal xp pro/home : impossible copier p3.sys HELP

[Nadeem]

I am running Widnwos XP and there are some issues with the applications installation. So I was trying to reinstall Windows XP by formatting the partition. But at about 60% of installation, I got an error that stated "installation program cannot copy the file: p3.sys". Whatever option I select nothing works. Can anyone please help me out? Thanks.

[KOVID]

Not sure but i guess "p3.sys" is something related to Intel Pentium 3 class chip. Anyway. can you tell me if you have installed any windows earlier and then you reformatted the drive and tried again to reinstall Windows XP due to this Error message?

[Nadeem]

Yeah, you are correct KOVIED. Earlier i was having Windows XP PRO installed on this system but due to some applications installation issues i did the same.

So what to do now? I hope you have some solution for this, right?

[S Kent]

Actually issues like copying files or files corruption while installing Windows are usually caused due to defective or sub-standard hardware such as faulty RAM, or Hard Drive with bad sectors. Few times it could be CD drive or your Windows Installation Disc as well. You need to check these also.

[pronco]

After much troubleshooting, I eventually was able attribute this error to a stick of faulty memory. I was attempting to install Windows XP Professional SP2 onto an Intel D865GBF motherboard running a Pentium IV 2.4 Ghz processor and four sticks of 256 MB memory, for a total of 1 GB RAM. Prior to determining a bad stick of RAM I swapped out two hard drives, four CDROM drives, updated the system BIOS from P21 to P25, rearranged Master/Slave/Cable Select jumpers on all ATAPI devices, swapped IDE channels and tried two different CDs of Windows XP Pro to make sure the first CD wasn't bad. The error persisted. Attempts to skip the file gave consistent errors copying different files and sometimes the installation would error out at different files from around the same installation point depending on the CD copy of XP Pro I was using at the time. The biggest clue was when I attempted to install Vista and got a blue screen of death. This pointed to a hardware problem, and up to now I had been suspecting the system board or even the CPU. Then I remembered the memory. Pulled a pair of sticks from the secondary memory slot and XP installed fine.

Perhaps with certain configurations of memory the files that are indicated as being unable to be copied are reached at the point during the installation at which a bad stick is hit. Another possibility is that there are many similar error messages pertaining to Windows system files that are "unable to be copied" during the install process being posted to the Internet, and depending on where your memory is bad, you will get your error messages as different files. While this might explain why there are so few answers to this question and why Microsoft does not address this specific error message where p3.sys cannot be copied, it would have been nice if they had created a KB article where it indicates that error messages of this type can likely be attributed to several factors, faulty memory being one of them.

-Paul Ronco, Computer Technician
www.paulronco.com