I’ve got a large pile of relatively useless CDs on my left here. Most of them will install XP SP2 if you’re already able to boot XP original edition and insert the CD.
I finally found a web site where it was explained in detail that the “Cannot boot from CD — Code 4” error was caused by some obscure settings in this “Nero Burning ROM” program that I’m trying to use to burn the bloody things on my girlfriend’s PC. So from that I learned I had to turn off “emulation mode” and specify 4 loaded sectors and turn off allowing more than 64 characters under “Relax restrictions”.
Dang, Toast sure isn’t this complicated! But Toast, unfortunately, won’t generate a bootable Windows installation CD.
Anyway, I now have one hardware CD and one “.iso” file, both of which will boot under VirtualPC (and therefore presumably will boot a real PC), BUT as they begin to unpack and set up shop, eventually complain that “The file QL12160.sys is corrupted”.
Damn damn damn. That file could’ve become corrupted at any point from the time I copied it off the original XP (non- SP2) installation CD, including as a consequence of the slipstreaming process (which I ran under VirtualPC) or as a consequence of one or more of the many file copies (I only discovered somewhat late in the game that I couldn’t just burn this sucker in Toast on the Mac), or even as a consquence of the process of burning it to disk (although since I did two burns, one to .iso disk image and one to physical CD, we can probably rule that one out, it would have had to have corrupted the same file twice).
Question the First) Would it be considered shady or unethical for me to ask someone who has a physical copy of an actual XP Pro SP2 installation CD to make a copy of this one lousy freaking file (QL12160.SY_, it’s a compressed file on the CD)? It’s not like I’d be asking for pirated software or anything like that, right? I think I know someone who could do that but I don’t want to put him in an awkward position.
Question the Second) Can I purchase a working functional copy of the XP Pro SP 2 installation CD somewhere under the understanding that I have my own license key and only need the installation media, i.e., NOT for the price that buying a copy of the OS itself would cost me? Where from? Again, looking for non-shady options here. GF is a licensed registered Windows user.
The new PC will be a Mac Mini, and because of the way Boot Camp works we can’t just install the original pre-SP2 copy of XP and then run Windows Updater. The CD has to be XP SP2 from the beginning.
And I already know about Parallels. I’ve told her about Parallels. At least for now, she doesn’t want to go that route; it’s another layer of things that could go wrong, etc etc. (And foreign to her, she’s totally not a Mac person, far beyond the sense in which I am not a Windows person).