My Windows XP won't Install...
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.
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.
0
Comments
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.
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
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...
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.
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.
Glad you got you problem whipped.
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!
The link to MS is: “http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216251/EN-US/”
:bawling: Been there!
Link: " http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q237556"
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.
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.
Many late nights on this one
see Microsoft ID311755 and dont try to reinvent the wheel.
http://icrontic.com/articles/slipstream_windows_xp
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.
Now just pull up a chair and make yourself comfy.