You shouldn't need the floopies if you can configure the machine to boot
from the CD.  If you *can't*, then I suspect that you need an additional
driver diskette, at the appropriate point in the floppy sequence, to instal
the CD driver needed; your install is failing when it needs to read from the
CD, and doesn't know how.

  There are a couple of other options.  You may be able to use another
machine to copy the CD to a hard drive partition, or a flash drive, or a ZIP
disk if you have a suitable drive available, and then redirect to there
instead of the CD drive during the install process.

David Gillett



On 7 Feb 2005 at 23:47, alan smith wrote:

> Thank you for the reply, however, it goes through ALL FOUR boot floppys
> and into the CD to the install or repair option, then I get the nasty message.
> The CD is brand new, scratch free, and I bought it from a store that builds
> and sells computers, so it's classed as OEM and microsoft wants to charge
> me $150.00CDN for help and I paid $219.00 CDN for the disk. Two years
> ago, I paid $400.00CDN for XP, used it for 3 months and scrapped it. I didn't
> like the way it worked. Thank you for your help.   AL SMITH
>
>
>
> [log in to unmask] wrote:In a message dated 2/7/2005 9:47:46 AM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes:
> I bought a refurbished DELL desktop, P3  997mhz, 20Gb drive, remnants
> of Win98. I changed to 40Gbdrive, used eraser to clean it, and I'm trying to
> install Win2Kpro. I get to the install or repair, click ENTER and I get a window
> ".SIF file corrupt or missing, value on the line in section [source disk files]
> with key "sp4.cab". Setup cannot continue, pressF3 to quit"...
> Is something missing from DELL because I changed the hard drive ??
> This is my first experience with a DELL pc. Very well built unit.
> Any suggestions appreciated.   Thank you,   AL SMITH
> Hi,
>   This sounds more like the CD drive is having problems reading the disk. You hit enter, and it goes looking for files on the CD, and can't find them. Is the disk scratched up?
>
> Hope this helps,
> Peter Hogan
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
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