My Windows XP won't Install...

edited January 2009 in Science & Tech
I was trying install XP on my lil' brothers system (slightly lame). So anyway he has just got a new hard drive and now hes stuck without an OS. The problem is that it seems to hang on the "setup is starting windows" blue screen after all the pre-installation stuff and before it gets to the drive managment part. It can hang there for days.

Having read other forums on here i have tried the following:

- I tried my XP disk on another computer ----> disk = fine.
- Tried installing it in a different CD drive
- removing all my un-necessary components one at a time. I am now left with my hard drive on master, my DVD drive on Slave. my VGA card, and one RAM stick
I am in serious need of help.

Cheers guys. :confused:

Comments

  • edited April 2005
    Are you getting all the way through the install or is it making it just past the point of formating with about (39 minutes left).

    I had a similar issue. Gave me a i386 error in the asms file.

    I had tried to use different cd, another hard drive, different cables, different cd rom. Finally fixed it with doing a bios flash. Everything I have in the pc is brand new. Couldnt believe I had to do that to a new motherboard.

    Good luck. ;D
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited April 2005
    Have you disabled as many onboard devices as possible? USB, LAN, Sound, any and everything possible to just get the bare OS installed.

    When you said the dvd drive was a slave. Its not a slave to the hard drive is it? If so get it off that cable.

    Have one cdrom on one cable as master on the end connector. And have the new hard drive on the end connector on a a seperate cable on the other ide channel as master.

    Tex
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited April 2005
  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited April 2005
    Few tidbits... I've had CD-Rom's that did not spin up fast enough, that caused problems.

    In your case, the memory is probably the culprit. As the Windows installer loads into memory, it gets to a bad spot in memory and hangs. Memtest.

    Side note: meanee... the i386 problem has occurred to me also. Copy the i386 folder to another CD. Just the i386 folder. You do not need to start over with the install, just let the system restart with NO CD. When it asks for the Windows CD, put the i386 CD in. It will use that until it needs the rest of the windows CD, it will prompt you to enter the Windows D again. Remove the i386 CD and put the windows install CD in... works every time. Why does it happen and why does it work... :confused:
  • edited April 2005
    Thanks for the input QCH. :p

    I tried that several times; copying the I386 folder. Even tried on different machines.

    I also had disabled everything under the sun that I did not need. Still no good. :scratch:

    I had read ALOT of posts and only saw one with the fix that worked for me. Flashing the bios. I was a bit scared to do it since I hadn't done it before and knew that if I screwed it up I was going to be hurting, but it was either flash it or kick it, I choose flash. (spent to much to kick)

    I would recommend that everyone try everything else they can think of before flashing though. Drives, CDs, Memory, Disabe everything not needed.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2005
    meanee, I know how you feel about bios flashing. I've done it hundreds of times, but I always find myself holding my breath until I actually see it finished and the system restarts alright.

    Glad you got you problem whipped. :)
  • edited April 2005
    In regards to how far my install gets... it gets to all the pre-installationwith the bklue screen, says, windows is starting setup, and then gets no further. I dont get to the formatting stage where i can partition my drive. I have tried all the things suggested and I am still having trouble. I thought about flashing my BIOS, however i cannot find a later version of it. I think i have the latest BIOS.
  • edited April 2005
    In regards to how far my install gets... it gets to all the pre-installationwith the bklue screen, says, windows is starting setup, and then gets no further. I dont get to the formatting stage where i can partition my drive. I have tried all the things suggested and I am still having trouble. I thought about flashing my BIOS, however i cannot find a later version of it. I think i have the latest BIOS.


    I just recently spent three nights trying to work through a hang after “mup.sys” load in safe mode and after exhausting everything I could think of, or read of to change in the system with no relief, I decided to wipe my HD and reload XP. Now when I loaded XP I experienced the same issue that you are stuck with, a hang at the “Setup is Starting Windows screen”.

    I believe the mup.sys and the install hang issue, at least in my case, are one in the same. I believe that in both cases the system was getting stuck because it didn’t know, for what ever reason, what the hardware was, in particular the power management scheme.

    Before trying what I finally had to do, first make a couple more attempts after making a some changes to your bios settings: First check to see if ACPI is enabled in power management, If not change the settings, save, then try to reload XP. If this didn’t work, again go into the bios and check that ESCD can be saved or written to, save bios and retry.

    If neither of these works then try pressing the “F5” key while XP is detecting hardware. I found an article about this at µsft , please read before you attempt this and be aware that you may have different power management settings than you expect (in my case the system returns an “It’s now safe to shut your system down” message after I shut down through the START menu) so beware! :scratch:

    The link to MS is: “http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216251/EN-US/”

    :bawling: Been there!
    :D Good luck!
  • edited April 2005
    :) You might want to try this before you try "F5", it might have saved me from th power down issue.

    Link: " http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q237556"
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited April 2005
    I've had the exact same problem installing Windows 2000 or XP onto a dual slot 1 board. I've never found any resolution, and I've tried every suggestion on this page before. I'm anxious for more ideas :thumbsup:
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2005
    In most cases, disabling as many onboard devices as you can during the installation is a good idea. Sometimes it works the other way around.

    Windows can still detect some onboard devices even if they've been disabled, but often hangs because it can't figure out exactly what it is. I just installed WinXP on an old board with a built-in SCSI Controller. Since I wasn't going to be using that feature I disabled it in the bios. Windows hung every time I tried to install it. Once it was re-enabled things went smooth as silk.

    Worth a try. :)
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited April 2005
    I think I've tried it both ways with my onboard SCSI (is my mind in the gutter, or does that sound a little dirty?), but maybe there are some other devices I can tamper with. Worth a try. :thumbsup:
  • edited April 2005
    Looks like i will have to do the F5 in the setup part. However, I cannot find that article. Shall I just go ahead and do it? what does it do? And could my graphics card be causing the problems. This would be difficult to solve as I have no on-board graphics... :shakehead
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited April 2005
    I can't beleive no one has asked for the system specs yet!!! We have no idea what-so-ever what he is running.

    It would certainly help to know;
      *Motherboard *CPU *Memory *Video Card *Hard Drive

    Even Tex may be forgetting that if it is one of the old VIA chip based boards (Kt-133, KT-266 or KT-333) with an older Nvidia card Windows will never install without at least swapping cards till after the install.
  • Nitram9857Nitram9857 Auckland NZ
    edited January 2009
    I was trying install XP on my lil' brothers system (slightly lame). So anyway he has just got a new hard drive and now hes stuck without an OS. The problem is that it seems to hang on the "setup is starting windows" blue screen after all the pre-installation stuff and before it gets to the drive managment part. It can hang there for days.

    Having read other forums on here i have tried the following:

    - I tried my XP disk on another computer ----> disk = fine.
    - Tried installing it in a different CD drive
    - removing all my un-necessary components one at a time. I am now left with my hard drive on master, my DVD drive on Slave. my VGA card, and one RAM stick
    I am in serious need of help.

    Cheers guys. :confused:
    Hi I am on this road at the moment. The problem is simple really. The problem is about drivers. XP doesn't load SATA drivers, so it cannot load the i386 files when it changes its mode in the install phase. The only way around this that I can see is to slipstream the extra drivers into the install CD. The work around is to install XP using only the IDE interface. It is not all bad Fernando at nforcehq makes driver packs and gives tips on using nLite to intergrate them in .:eek3:
    Many late nights on this one
    see Microsoft ID311755 and dont try to reinvent the wheel.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Icrontic maintains its own slipstreaming article with chipset AHCI/SATA driver downloads:
    http://icrontic.com/articles/slipstream_windows_xp
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Nitram9857 wrote:
    Hi I am on this road at the moment. The problem is simple really. The problem is about drivers. XP doesn't load SATA drivers, so it cannot load the i386 files when it changes its mode in the install phase. The only way around this that I can see is to slipstream the extra drivers into the install CD. The work around is to install XP using only the IDE interface. It is not all bad Fernando at nforcehq makes driver packs and gives tips on using nLite to intergrate them in .:eek3:
    Many late nights on this one
    see Microsoft ID311755 and dont try to reinvent the wheel.

    Nitram9857,
    Welcome to Icrontic!

    Please note that you revived a 4 year old thread. At the time the old NVidia 4xx series cards were abundant and did cause the freeze on the "Windows is starting screen" during install. Not having SATA drivers just left you empty handed with no where to install. ;)
  • Nitram9857Nitram9857 Auckland NZ
    edited January 2009
    Thanks to the Old goat for the welcome, and tap on the shoulder. I should look around before diving in
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Nitram9857 wrote:
    Thanks to the Old goat for the welcome, and tap on the shoulder. I should look around before diving in
    You are most certainly welcome!
    Now just pull up a chair and make yourself comfy.
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