BSOD When Reinstalling WinXP Pro SP3 - pci.sys

Question

Hi,

Have a Vostro 420 that I've decided to reinstall Windows XP - a fresh install. The Vostro does still boot to Windows, but has shown some erratic behavior that suggest a virus or other malware.

However, XP will not reinstall. BIOS was upgraded to 1.3 from 1.0.3; BIOS settings were reset to defaults and then the SATA option was changed from AHCI to ATA.

Boot sequence involves the following:

1 Power up
2 BIOS tests run
3 Press F12 to get Boot Menu
4 Choose CD/DVD - "Press any key to boot from the CD..."
5 Windows Setup begins, loads drivers
6 Starting Windows message appears as the rest of the screen goes blank, then,
7 BSOD pointing to pci.sys; STOP is 7E; Address F748E0BF

Any way to get XP to install?

Bardi · Accepted Answer

From other sites it was recommended to preload the SATA controller drivers by hitting F6 at the beginning of Windows Setup.

OK - XP is now Installing, thanks to preloading the Dell INFO,RAID0 driver file via F6 in Windows Setup. NOTE: I was able to load the drivers onto a FAT32 formatted 1 GB USB drive and the Vostro & Windows Setup recognized it as Drive A:

This Vostro has no floppy installed.

The only snafu was that there were drivers for other controllers in that set of files and I took an educated guess which one to load.

Thanks to all!

rdunnill · Answer

Is your XP install disc SP1 or SP2? Some are reporting this error attempting to install the original XP on newer machines like the 420.

Bardi · Answer

I ran both sets of diagnostics.  Also, ran memtest.  The only failure was during the video testing:

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BSOD When Reinstalling WinXP Pro SP3 - pci.sys

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