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Pages: 1
Poll: why does WinXP hang during install?
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Posted by: heretic
You've probably gotten this question before, but I did a search and didn't find it.
I just put together a new system and I'm having trouble installing Win XP Pro (licensed copy, of course). I boot to the CD, it formats the HD without complaining, files are copied without any apparent problems, and then the machine reboots to the HD to run the setup portion. At this point the machine hangs. I see the WinXP logo, the scrolling blue bars slide across the screen once or twice, then stop. Lock up. A couple times I've gotten past the logo to the first setup screen, but it locks up right after that.
When I started over from step 1, I get messages like "FOO.DLL on the HD is not a valid copy. You may have a bad Win XP CD." So I tried my other WinXP CD. Got the same message.
Computer specs:
Shuttle barebone system: SN45G, board uses the NForce2 chipset
CPU: Athlon XP 2500+ mobile
RAM: Geil Golden Dragon DDR-400, PC 3500, (2X512 MB)
HD: Maxtor 40GB 7200 rpm
DVD: Lite-on DVD-RW
Vid: ATI Radeon 9700 pro
floppy: none
Here's what I've tried so far:- Formatted the HD in another computer and check for errors
- boot to repair mode and run FIXMBR
- removed one of the sticks of RAM and reboot
- increased the voltage on the RAM to 2.7v (it's rated for 2.65 to 2.95v)
- changed the CPU voltage from default to 1.55v
- replace the ATI Radeon 9700 with another video card (one that uses less power)
- used a different WinXP CD
- wept, wailed, gnashed teeth
A little more info:
I've used this HD in another system (Win2000 server). It worked fine. But I did a full format (NTFS) as part of this new installation.
I've been watching the temps each time I reboot. It's never been over 40C (according to the BIOS).
Thanks for reading. Any help/ideas appreciated.
Posted by: NegotiatorSmith
Go into the BIOS, make sure your RAM timings are at their defaults. You might want to try relaxing your timings a bit too.
Posted by: TwiztidJuggalo
try installing XP without anything you don't need on the comp, i mean take out the DVD, and only use the bare essentials for now. by bare essentials i mean vid card, hdd, mobo, ram, and cpu.i tried to install XP once with a modem in there that wasnt on the mobo, and it hanged too. this may not be the problem, but it is worth a try.
-matt
Posted by: NegotiatorSmith
I'd agree with you, TwiztidJuggalo, but based on what he's posted so far, the DVD drive is the only optical drive in his system...
Posted by: heretic
NegotiatorSmith, I did notice that the default timing was set for CAS 2 and the RAM is supposed to be CAS 2.5, so I changed it (to 2.5/3/3/6). I'll try all the timings higher, like 3/4/4/8. And I'll try slowing down the FSB and memory clock speeds too.
Also, I only ran it with one stick of RAM one time - I should try it again with the other stick.
TwiztidJuggalo, The DVD is the only optical drive, but I can try swapping it out with my other computer.
I'm posting from work now, so I'm just making a list of things to try when I get home.
Posted by: DemonBob
Disconnect the floppy, make sure that your HD and CD-ROM are on seperate cables, like they said try switching out the DVD drive for another driver, preferably a normal CD-Drive.
Also if your HDD is ATA 100, and requires the 80 pin IDE make sure your useing it instead of the normal 40 Pin IDE. When installing make sure nothing like a printer or scanner is hooked up to it. No USB items, if your using a USB mouse/keyboard then try using a PS2 mouse and keyboard.
Try installing an older version of windows like 98, then doing an upgrade, or an advance install from windows.
Just a few suggestions. Trying to help.
Posted by: heretic
Update, weirdness.
First of all, thanks for all the suggestions so far. I tried most of them, even swapping out an IDE cable, although the original one was a 80 pin cable.
I had a lot of junk to do last night and didn't have a chance to run memtest. But I pulled the DDR266 out of another computer and installed that in the new computer. Same sympton - the computer hangs out exactly the same point in the install. I still want to run memtest to see what it says, but right now it doesn't look like a RAM thing.
So I swapped out the DVD drive. No change.
I attached a floppy drive and re-enabled the floppy seek in BIOS (just in case Windows was trying to access it) but that didn't do anything.
At this point I returned all the old parts to the old computer and put the new parts back in the new computer. Then I tried to install Windows 2000. It also hangs at the same damn time - the first reboot to the hard drive, after all the files have been copied.
Installing Linux was supposed to be a comedy option, but I tried it anyway, just to see what would happen. RedHat 8 installed with no problems at all.
So why can I install Linux, but can't install WinXP or Win2000? What possible hardware problem would cause that? My only guess is that Linux did a complete disk check prior to install, identified a bad block and worked around it. Does this make sense? Any other possibilities?
Posted by: redwench
thats possible. its also possible youre not giving windows enough time to boot. have you tried letting it go overnight with minimal hardware installed?
Posted by: heretic
Well, windows looks like it's frozen. Those blue dots that scroll by stop moving. That's not very scientific though. I think the longest I've let it sit there is 10 or 15 minutes.
Next time I try to install windows, I'll let it run a couple hours, or overnight.
Posted by: NegotiatorSmith
Heh heh heh... just waiting might be the solution. 
I was in a situation exactly like this a couple months ago. As part of a networking course I was taking at my college, I had to remove a NIC from a machine and install a modem. The modem installed fine, but when I rebooted Windows, it appeared that the computer had frozen while booting up. I waited for what seemed like forever and nothing happened. But sure enough, the machine did boot, although it took a *very* long time.
Did you get any of those file errors after your most recent reinstallation of XP?
Posted by: heretic
OK. After installing Linux I tried again with WinXP. I couldn't do a dual boot because I used too many partitions in my Linux install - Windows refused to be installed on partition #5. Oh well. I wiped out all the partitions and started over AGAIN.
And WinXP installed without any trouble. I even installed and ran Folding@home overnight. My theory is that Linux found a bad block on the HD during the installation and entered it into the HD's bad block table. I did tell Linux to do a full scan of the drives.
Well, I was still curious, so I ran CHKDSK. It told me "CHKDSK found and corrected an error on the drive." Well, that's not enough information. I downloaded a diagnostic program called TuffTEST and ran the drive check. The program crashed and killed the windows partition. I guess the hard drive was messed up after all.
But that ain't all! Now the computer doesn't want to boot with the default memory speeds. Sometimes it'll boot with just a tweak of the CAS latency, sometimes it won't boot even if I set the memory speed to DDR350. I just get a black screen when I power up.
So did I have a bad hard drive AND bad RAM!? I downloaded Memtest86, install it on a boot floppy, and attach the floppy to the new computer. Sure enough. the Geil RAM fails even when running at DDR266 speeds. Everything in the range of 555MB to 767MB is screwed up. I guess when windows was running folding@home, it just never had to access that portion of the RAM.
From now on, the first thing I'm gonna do when I build a computer is run Memtest86. And I'm buying my RAM from Crucial, from now on.
Thanks to everybody for the help. And thanks for not voting "ID-ten-T" 
Posted by: DemonBob
NP man, glad you sorted it out. Another thing to do, is whenever building a new PC run the HDD manufactures HD test utility along with Memtest. Something i've been doing for years, its a good troubleshooting step while building a PC, to tell you if those two are good before you even try to put an OS on them
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