Non allocatable error message on a cd made under winME trying to read in xp help please

When you first start the system ensure you have the windows XP CD in the optical drive before you try to boot. Once you see the Compaq screen press F12 (or if the system has a different prompt choose it) to get the one time boot menu, select the optical drive with the arrow keys, press enter, the system should give you a 5 second prompt to boot to the XP CD, press the spacebar to boot. This should bring up the windows XP setup, choose NTFS quick for the file system and then for any other prompt the default setting and windows should install

Hi,

Here the reason why youre getting the error message

Remove the non-system disk from your boot device. For example, remove the non-system disk from the floppy drive or the CD-ROM drive.

Change your computer's boot sequence in you Bios. Make sure that you select a device that has boot files (or operating system files) installed.

If you start your computer from a hard disk drive, install a bootable operating system (such as Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7) on the drive.

Thanks for using Fixya

When you try to write data to an optical disc, you may experience any of the following symptoms:

* You receive various disc write error messages.
* You experience issues with the drive and the built-in recording feature of Windows XP.
* You experience issues with third-party programs that you use to write data to the disc.
* You cannot read the disc in all versions of Windows.
* You cannot read the disc, or some files on the disk, by using an MP3 player.
* When you add files or folders to a disc that already contains data, some files are lost.
* Recording files to the disc is inconsistent.
* The disc recording operation is consistently unsuccessful.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Troubleshooting specific errors
If you experience one of the following errors, follow the appropriate steps to resolve the error.

* There is no disc in the drive. Please insert a writable CD into drive.
This error can occur if the CD-R drive or CD-RW drive is not recognized as a recordable device. This error can also occur if the device driver has been corrupted. To resolve this issue, see Method 3 in the "General troubleshooting" section and Method 1 in the "Advanced troubleshooting" section.

* Drive not accessible, incorrect function
This error message typically occurs when you try to write to a CD-R or a CD-RW, and the Windows XP built-in disc recording feature does not recognize the CD drive as a recordable drive. This error message may also occur if specific third-party programs are installed. For more information about how to troubleshoot this error,

when you access the CD-ROM drive, the DVD-ROM drive, or the CD-RW drive
* Error Deleting File or Folder.
Cannot delete file name. Files on this CD-ROM drive are read-only. You cannot copy or move files over to this CD-ROM drive.

This error message can occur because individual files cannot be deleted from the CD-RW. You cannot use the CD disc recording feature of Windows XP for random-access storage while you are writing to disc.

To set the service to Automatic, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type services.msc /s, and then click OK.
2. Double-click IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service.
3. Under Service Status, click Start.
4. Try to write data to a CD.

Had this problem the other day. Had to run the non destrcutive restore to get windows back.

If you get the error-message when you try to boot your computer, your disk-drive is either:
1. not connected to the motherboard
2. improperly connected to the motherboard
3. dead/dying, so that the Operating System files on the disk-drive *CANNOT* be read.

So, the computer tries to boot from an "alternative" device (either the 3.5-inch device or the CD-ROM device) -- if you don't have any media inserted into either device, you will get the error-message.

you need to set the first boot device to cd-rom and then enter a good non-scratchy xp disk and boot again.....you will get a option to press any key to boot from cd then press any key..

Yes this can be fixed however it will require reformatting the drive. If you have any vital information on your laptop take it to a professional as you will not be able to recover after you proceed.
Use any bootdisk (Ubuntu, XP, Disk commander) that you have at your disposal. Assuming you still your XP disc, change your BIOS to have the CD as the first boot device. If you have a proper XP disc (non-OEM) it should display a blue setup screen that will disappear after a few minutes. Then press R to enter Recovery Console, press 1 and then enter. Type fixmbr and press enter, then press y and enter again. Type exit and enter, the computer will reboot. Now follow through the install process.

The drivers are not designed for WinME.

The Lexmark driver for that model only supports Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, and Vista.

Unfortunately, none of these drivers will work on WinME.

download, burn and run the bootable memtest cd or dvd, boot from it and it will run tests your RAM.
http://www.memtest.org/

I have run into similar problems with faulty ram.

No, it's because Microsoft changed the way boot CDs work with SP2. You need an old CD (Windows XP SP1). I had the same problem here, notebook without floppy, it won't boot from the newer XP version CDs (SP2 or SP3) - but an old SP1 CD works!
(Those were all original Microsoft CDs, and the SP2 / SP3 CDs boot just fine on several other PCs I tested. It's just that some old hardware has a problem with the boot mode used on newer Windows CDs.)