Any WinXP wizards care to give me a hand?

[bubba_fett]

I'm installing WinXP pro on my computer (pIII, 933mhz, asus board, all IDE parts) and the installation goes fine until windows boots up and my computer freezes on the startup screen. I am doing a clean install, I formatted my drive in ntfs before I started (I tried this in fat32 and it did the same thing, so that's not it).

I can get into safe mode, but only without networking. I unplugged everything from the back beside video, mouse, and keyboard. I had one piece of hardware that XP wasn't recognizing, an old TV card and I yanked that.

Still no good. Anyone have any ideas?

thanks

[boxster]

1. Your motherboard might require a driver for the hard drive controller.

Some built-in hard drive controllers (Ultra-66, Ultra-100, etc.) require the installation of a driver during the initial Windows XP installation.

If your motherboard came with a hard drive controller floppy or CD, you might need to use that during the initial install (there's a point right as it begins copying files where you can press F6 to install the driver.)

[TrueAmerican]

2. Could be bad ram

I had the same problem. When I took out some extra ram I bought on the internet, it booted up fine.

[Orrin_73]

9. Had same problem a year ago and it turnes out the be

bad ram!

kucinich.us

deanforamerica.com
clark04.com
sharpton2004.org

Tom DeLay:"I challenge anyone to live on my salary" <$158,000 a year>

[Kellanved]

20. third vote for bad ram

Have you tried selecting a slower RAM speed in the BIOS (PC100 CL3)

Mybe the PSU is faulty or too weak?.


One other possibility:
Are all cards firmly placed in their slots? Especially the Video Card might cause something like this, if not all contacts are in position.

[Disandra]

3. Suggestion...

I'm not sure what is the problem. However, if you want to browse through some of the tips located here:

http://cgi.techtv.com/search?query_text=Help+Install+Windows+XP§ion=entire+site&date_range=past+month&x=0&y=0

You might find something that can help.

Good luck!

:-)

[democracyindanger]

4. startup screen?

which one, exactly--the black Win screen with progress bar, the 'Welcome' screen, the Login screen?

[bubba_fett]

6. the black startup screen

the progress bar moves about half-way down, and then stops.

[Briarius]

5. Are you making it all the way into win in safe mode?

If so check for any conflicts under the device manager...other than that I'd say you're gonna have to give it another install. Another thing you can try is hitting esc (i think) at the startup splash screen (before it freezes) and you should be able to see what's being loaded when it freezes. I'm not sure if that works as I haven't been running XP for a couple of months. Hope this helps some...

[bubba_fett]

7. safe mode in fine

I can get in all the way, all the hardware that's in there works fine. I'll try the esc button.

[democracyindanger]

8. Another vote for re-install

Since you already formatted your drive, it shouldn't hurt too much :)

Also, try here. It's helped me out a bunch of times.

http://www.theeldergeek.com

[bubba_fett]

10. This is install #2

Thanks for the link. :)

Edit: I think I may have found it on that site:

Almost immediately after Windows setup begins the screen shown to the left will appear. Unless you have the very latest in hardware you probably won't need to press the F6 key to install and SCSI or RAID driver. However, when XP is first installed it tries to determine what type of BIOS is available on the computer. Newer systems have what is known as Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) capability. Unfortunately, XP doesn't always recognize a computer BIOS is ACPI capable and doesn't install the support for ACPI. Pressing F5 at this point allows you to select the proper HAL.

That's me. Thanks, I'll give it a go!

[boxster]

11. If that doesn't work, my initial suggestion still holds true.

"Unless you have the very latest in hardware you probably won't need to press the F6 key to install and SCSI or RAID driver"

This is no longer true (the "unless you have the latest" part). I've experienced exactly the problem you're having because XP wasn't recognizing the hard drive controller correctly. And, it is NOT limited to SCSI or RAID drivers only, contrary to the message. Many IDE controller cards require these drives especially if you're installing a pre-SP1 version of XP.

[bubba_fett]

12. ok, thanks

Thanks for all of your help, I'll look into that too.

[boxster]

14. I pretty much do this stuff for a living, so if you continue to have...

problems after trying some of the suggestions offered in this thread, feel free to PM me and I'll do what I can to help.

[papau]

16. XP still has problems seeing a SCSI drive w/o some hand holding

but I have also had the bad ram problem where I had to take out ram to get it to run.

[boxster]

18. Yeah, I have as well, but not usually at the same point where this

problem is occurring.

[twistedliberal]

13. Try clearing the CMOS...

Follow motherboard manufacturer's instructions for clearing CMOS, (or just pull the battery for a while).

Worked for me a couple of times, when all else failed...

:shrug:

[BlueJazz]

15. I install windows for my customers and it sounds...

...like you are using cheap memory. ....or at least one cheap memory bar.

Windows XP is (and can be) a little more "picky" about the quality of your memory than previous versions of windows.

[ChoralScholar]

17. You may also check

and see if your TCP/IP settings are trying to obtain an IP address from DHCP. If you don't have it plugged up to a LAN or to a Cable Modem or some such, it will sit there for a pretty good while trying to pull down an IP address.

[toddzilla]

19. this has worked for me in the past..

go into the bios and disable apci power management.

you won't be able to shut off your system using software mode, but it may get you past the installation.

i've had to do it on a few systems.

XP stinks.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

21. If all else fails...

switch to Win2k Pro. That's what I did. I hated XP.