Many years ago if I had seen any errors during the installation of Windows my first assumption would have been that some of the hardware wasn’t compatible or had failed. Now its been at least three years since I’ve seen a bad stick of RAM. Three years made it easy to forget to check most of the basics when I saw the following error during an install of Windows Server 2003:

File setupdd.sys could not be loaded.
The error code is 4

Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit.

The quick solution: try pulling all but one stick of RAM (hopefully you have at least a 128MB stick for Windows XP or a 256MB stick for installing Server 2003 or the Windows Vista Beta…).

According to MS Knowledge Base article #330181 the resolution is the old school - pull any add-in cards and then pull RAM and add it back one piece at a time. Forget wasting time on that much effort. I did some searching to save myself from pulling the SCSI controller and all the other fun stuff out. Based on anecdotal evidence from a number of web forums the most likely problem is a bad stick of RAM. Should pulling and switching RAM fail, try to disable the CPU’s L2 cache or switch out the video card. A bad CPU or video card seems more common than a PCI card issue based on the web forums.

15 Responses to “Windows Installation Error Code 4 or “setupdd.sys” Could Not be Loaded”

1. Atdhe, on December 19th, 2005 at 3:34 pm, said:
   

   How to disable the CPU’s L2 ?

2. Atdhe, on December 19th, 2005 at 3:39 pm, said:
   

   pls send me mail at atdheu10@gmail.com.
   Thx.

3. Mike Buday, on December 19th, 2005 at 11:34 pm, said:
   

   What type of CPU? Although, not all CPU’s allow this function.

   In general, you can do it from the system BIOS. That’s usually accessed by pressing F1, F2, or F4 (on some HP PC’s) at startup.

4. Grant Langdon, on November 19th, 2006 at 11:54 pm, said:
   

   regarding error code 4 thank you the problem was also a faulty stick of ram. problem is fixed much appreciated Grant Langdon

5. starprowler, on December 29th, 2006 at 3:49 pm, said:
   

   setupdd.sys error: appeared to be a bad stick of RAM. Pulled it out and installation continued.

   earlier i got a pci.sys missing or corrupted error on a perfectly working WinXP install. probably due to the same RAM?

6. vis, on October 10th, 2007 at 9:50 am, said:
   

   Recently i faced the error pci.sys as well as sometimes setupdd.sys.I tried to debug what could be the problem but iam not convinced with different information.I didnt stop my search for good forum.I found this site and i read the 1st post and its reply.i was very much impressed with the answer and followed,my problem is solved and i thank for the good solution

7. mckrel, on December 15th, 2007 at 10:54 am, said:
   

   i spent more than two days trying to resolve this problem, i tried to boot from 98 but it fail, i tried to fix it by taking files from another windows directory but it failled. i was really desesperate. And then i found your “old school” solution and it worked like magic. Thanks, you saved my day

8. dutchclutch, on January 11th, 2008 at 9:08 pm, said:
   

   Thank You So Much Stupid Bad Stick Of RAM like u said…

9. Steven, on January 19th, 2008 at 11:56 pm, said:
   

   Thanks for posting this solution. I tried to boot from cd, tried to reformat system partition, and was running out of options…when I stumbled onto this post. Took out the ram in the first slot and all is well.

10. sup3i2Son1c, on February 1st, 2008 at 9:06 am, said:
    

    I had the same problem few days ago. Then I restarted my PC, I didn’t touched anything in BIOS nor I haven’t removed any hardware from my PC, started setup again, same err, restarted again, no err, windows setup works fine. Now hardware can’t repair all on itself can it? How do you explain that? I’ve also checked my RAM with memtest 86+, works fine, my HDDs are 100% healthy, all PCI devices work fine, win CD fine. Any ideas?

11. Crd821, on February 23rd, 2008 at 6:17 pm, said:
    

    I can’t believe how well it works this trick, I tried it today when it seemed all hope lost and it amasingly worked. Thanks a lot. (Just a bad RAM all the problem that it can cause.)

12. SOD JaWolf, on March 2nd, 2008 at 10:43 pm, said:
    

    I searched MSN for and answer to this problem and read the posts. I read and tried the Old School method and found the bad stick of RAM… Dude, you rock…

13. Gerald, on May 23rd, 2008 at 1:19 am, said:
    

    I have the same error, setupdd.sys could not be loaded. I replaced RAM by changing slots, I also took the same RAM sticks to another laptop and worked fine but on the laptop I working on now wouldn’t boot. Any help please?

14. chris mae, on June 10th, 2008 at 5:43 pm, said:
    

    thank you very much I solve my promblem error code 4 becuased of this website!!!!Its helps me a lot in trouble shooting my problem in my pc!!!again thank you!!!!

15. shaun, on June 12th, 2008 at 6:13 pm, said:
    

    thank god for this websitethis helped me out no end thankyou!!!!!

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