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.

7 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

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