Re: reinstall failes

Okay ...

Thus far - we've determined your CD/DVD drives are known good hardware but
how do you run 3 on 1 PC? That you've tried this with 4 different Windows
XP CDs and all get to the same place in Setup where it errors looking for an
ASMS.??? file. \ASMS is located in X: \i386\ASMS where x is your drive
letter. Each folder in \ASMS is numbered: 1, 2, 10, 52, 60, 70, 1000,
5100, 6000, 7000. Each numbered folder contains a subfolder inside called
\Default - and inside each of these subfolders are two files called
Default.Man and Default.CA

If I was to take a wild guess, these files are queried by Windows
Setup -during boot from CD- in order to determine what the basic hardware
set up is on the system, prior to setup commencing. Any drivers setup will
require to continue - are copied into a temp folder on the harddrive - so
setup can proceed working from the harddrive and CD after copying Cab
files - before the 1st reboot.

Perhaps, it creates this file ASMS.??? on the harddrive in order to control
what devices setup will eventually install from the CD. Mind you, I could
be way off here too. I didn't write the installer.. like you, I just use it.
LOL

If you pause think about it for a moment, the chances that all these disks
you own are defective or share the same defect in common is just way too
convenient: meaning, I'd tend to believe its still a hardware config
related issue somehow.

Try using only one CD Drive on 2nd IDE channel - and your system drive on
1st IDE channel. Be sure both the Harddrive and CD/DVD drive are set as
Master. Try Setup again and see what shakes.


David B, SWE <DavidBSWE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks to NotMe, Patrick and CJ for your input. My comments may have been
misunderstood because, I just noticed, the original complaint by "les"
refers to the error following a "System Restore", and my grievance does
not refer to the System Restore utility. I'll backpedal in one other
way, too: I do not know that all XP OS CDs, or even all XP Professional
OS CDs, sold by Microsoft have the defect I've described. The error may
not be so widespread. (So I believe NotMe when he says he's never seen
the error.)

Apart from those mini mea culpas, though, I stand by what I said. I am
certain that this "missing ASMS File" error did not occur because of a
bad CD or DVD ROM drive, I have two DVD ROM drives and one older CD ROM
drive on my PC. All three are reliable, and all three produce the error.

I also know that the error occurs on all four copies of the Windows XP Pro
setup disk that I own. I have an OEM hologram copy given to me by a
former boss, dated 2002, and three copies on MSDN Professional
Subscription CDs dated 2003. The error occurs on at least three of the
MSDN copies as well as the OEM.

Furthermore, I know that complaints about this error go back about five
years. Do a Google on "missing asms file" (but without the quotes).
There are numerous responses to the problem, coming from users and
Microsoft MVPs alike. The answers include dirty CD, bad drive, bad
communication with drive, etc. Recent online forums all refer to KB
article Q311755, which Microsoft published 5/4/2005, an article that, as
I said before, is not particularly helpful. In spite of all the comments
and suggestions, though, so far I have found no one besides myself who
has actually searched the setup CD to see if it even *has* a file called
asms dot something. The absence of this file is what tells me there is
probably a defect in the repair logic, or else on the CD itself. It is
this fact that makes me skeptical of Patrick's advice that "changing the
hardware" might help. If a file called "asms" something is being searched
for, and doesn't exist, how could using a different CD ROM help?

I don't know all the answers, and don't have time to find them either.
But I still think there is a defect in the repair logic of many if not
all XP CDs, or else a missing file on the CD. If anyone would like to
try to reproduce the problem (on a clean hard disk), and tell me what you
find, I would be grateful for your feedback. But please read sections 1
and 2 of my earlier entry carefully, to be sure we're on the same page.
This is not about System Restore or the Recovery Console.

Oh yes. One piece of advice. I got into this mess by deleting 10
registry keys; of course I exported them first. I thought I would be
able to restore (import) those keys if something went wrong. But that
option was never available to me because I could not boot to Safe Mode.
When you can't boot to Safe Mode in any form, next you try Recovery
Console -- right? But you cannot run reg.exe from Win\Sys32 to import
those keys from Recovery Console. Nor can you restore a System State
backup, or much of anything else. It would have been better to back up
the whole registry from regedit using a special recognizable suffix.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that would have made it possible to
recover using the Recovery Console.

"NotMe" wrote:

I must be weird, I have done many XP repair installs & have never had
that error.

--
A Professional Amateur...If anyone knew it all, none of would be here!
CarGodZeroOne@xxxxxxxxxxx
Change Alpha to Numeric to reply
"David B, SWE" <David B, SWE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:A6B2EA9B-8EE2-4B0B-B267-7D9F083C05BA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"les" wrote:
doing a system restore it stopd and said file asms is needed from cd cd
is in
the drive can anyone help
Complaints in newsgroups, etc., about this "missing asms file" issue go
back
about five years. I personally have encountered the error at least
three times in as many years. Microsoft's Knowledge Base article
Q311755 -- the one that MVPs refer XP users to when they respond to
this complaint -- is irrelevant and useless. What we have here is a
serious bug in the Windows XP
setup CD that MVPs probably do not know about. Not only is it a serious
defect, one that affects virtually every copy of XP Professional Setup
CD and
DVD (I don't know about Home ed, never used it), but it is a defect that
has
never been acknowledged by Microsoft; there is no helpful KB article
about it, no workaround.
<snip>


.

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