Schmidtw   10590 pts.  |   Sep 2 2008  5:12PM GMT

Are you sure you are administrator on the box? Fi you don’t have proper rights/permissions, you would be able to install anything.

Hope this helps!

-Schmidtw

Britinga   345 pts.  |   Sep 4 2008  12:33PM GMT

Yes, I have admin rights. I tried reinstalling the OS but this time it failed, claiming that the media was corrupt. The media is valid - it installed fine on another box, and the CD is genuine (we have a volume license). I’m assuming it’s a hardware issue. Would it be more likely to be motherboard, memory, or hard drive?

Lonewolfbw   265 pts.  |   Sep 5 2008  2:32PM GMT

In my experience, a good percentage of the time if youcan eliminate the CD media as the problem, then the RAM is the next place you want to check.

With my attempts at installing WIndows, almost every time there was a problem along these lines it was a RAM issue. Plus, that’s an easy one to test, since it’s far easier to pop out/replace RAM than the other two.

Wrobinson   5610 pts.  |   Sep 8 2008  3:31PM GMT

You can now test RAM using Windows Memory Diagnostic, courtesy of Microsoft.

Wrobinson   5610 pts.  |   Sep 8 2008  3:36PM GMT

Based on the discussion, it may be that you have a physical hard drive problem. There are many tools that you can use to troubleshoot the problem. The first of which is chkdsk. Refer to the following article for more information and guidance

ShaneAlexander   320 pts.  |   Sep 9 2008  12:39AM GMT

Agree with above, looking like a hardware issue, the common factor could be ram or harddrive, I’m leaning towards harddrive.

Find out the make/model of the hard-drive, and search for an offline (e.g. create a CD) diagnostics program (e.g. Maxtor, Seagate have them).

Or HP have Offline diagnostics software.
“HP Insight Diagnostics Offline Edition”
“PC-Doctor Offline DOS Diagnostics”

Get HP software from below link, for your HP model
And definitely ensure you have latest BIOS and harddrive firmware.
 <a href="http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html" title="http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html" target="_blank">http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/supp…</a>

There is also an Online HP system check
 <a href="http://h20239.www2.hp.com/techcenter/HP_SystemCheck/hp_syscheck.htm" title="http://h20239.www2.hp.com/techcenter/HP_SystemCheck/hp_syscheck.htm" target="_blank">http://h20239.www2.hp.com/techcenter/HP_…</a>

Also… could be software (but as you’ve rebuilt it’s more likely hardware), so have a look at below links which may help.

“Windows Installer 4.5 is available” (e.g. to update the installer)
 <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942288" title="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942288" target="_blank">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942288</a>

“You cannot install some updates or programs”
 <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822798" title="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822798" target="_blank">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822798</a>

The cryptographic service needs to be working perfectly to install any apps.

p.s. I’m puzzled as you say you cannot install anything, yet say that you can install SP3 and updates.
When does the issue start? What is the exact error message / number?

ShaneAlexander   320 pts.  |   Sep 9 2008  12:43AM GMT

(Sorry about the links in above, haven’t got used to this editor yet)

Britinga   345 pts.  |   Sep 11 2008  6:14PM GMT

Thanks for all of the suggestions. This did turn out to be a memory problem. I removed 3 of the 4 RAM strips and
was able to reinstall Windows and the other apps. Then I replaced the RAM one strip at a time and used the Memory diagnostic tool that Wrobinson alerted me to.
Thanks again for all your help.