[UPDATE] An XP Installation Question
-
Got me a fun one with a customers PC at the moment. I get called in when he computer won't even boot as far as the logon dialog. Just loads the background picture and hangs. So I boot off a Bart PE disk and backup his data and then start the installation of XP. I carry around a copy of my OEM with SP2 as I find most people still have a SP1 edition or even an original. I hate waiting for a SP to load when I can have it already there on first boot. It gets to about 17% of the way through copying the files and chokes telling me it can't read some file or other. No worries the disk is a little the worse for wear, so I throw in their SP1 edition and it hangs at 12%. I change the IDE cable, try each drive (DVD and DVD-RW) individually. Change the master/slave order. Bring in another known working DVD-RW and finally bring in my pristine original OEM SP2 disk incase all others are stuffed. It hangs at 14%. Besides taking this machine upstairs just so I can kick it down the stairs, anyone have any idea of what else maybe the problem and what I can do about it? <EDIT> RAM, why didn't any of you tell me to check the RAM? Decided to boot up of a Knoppix 5.1.1 DVD and received a ton of decompression errors. Then booted off of Ultimate BootCD and ran Memtest86 3.2 and found the first DIMM full of errors. Swapped out the DIMM for another and all is now good with XP installing happily. </EDIT> -- modified at 1:09 Wednesday 13th June, 2007
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
-
Got me a fun one with a customers PC at the moment. I get called in when he computer won't even boot as far as the logon dialog. Just loads the background picture and hangs. So I boot off a Bart PE disk and backup his data and then start the installation of XP. I carry around a copy of my OEM with SP2 as I find most people still have a SP1 edition or even an original. I hate waiting for a SP to load when I can have it already there on first boot. It gets to about 17% of the way through copying the files and chokes telling me it can't read some file or other. No worries the disk is a little the worse for wear, so I throw in their SP1 edition and it hangs at 12%. I change the IDE cable, try each drive (DVD and DVD-RW) individually. Change the master/slave order. Bring in another known working DVD-RW and finally bring in my pristine original OEM SP2 disk incase all others are stuffed. It hangs at 14%. Besides taking this machine upstairs just so I can kick it down the stairs, anyone have any idea of what else maybe the problem and what I can do about it? <EDIT> RAM, why didn't any of you tell me to check the RAM? Decided to boot up of a Knoppix 5.1.1 DVD and received a ton of decompression errors. Then booted off of Ultimate BootCD and ran Memtest86 3.2 and found the first DIMM full of errors. Swapped out the DIMM for another and all is now good with XP installing happily. </EDIT> -- modified at 1:09 Wednesday 13th June, 2007
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
Sounds like maybe there are some bad sectors on the drive. Try getting the low-level disk utilities from the manufacturer's website, or try another hard drive.
-
Got me a fun one with a customers PC at the moment. I get called in when he computer won't even boot as far as the logon dialog. Just loads the background picture and hangs. So I boot off a Bart PE disk and backup his data and then start the installation of XP. I carry around a copy of my OEM with SP2 as I find most people still have a SP1 edition or even an original. I hate waiting for a SP to load when I can have it already there on first boot. It gets to about 17% of the way through copying the files and chokes telling me it can't read some file or other. No worries the disk is a little the worse for wear, so I throw in their SP1 edition and it hangs at 12%. I change the IDE cable, try each drive (DVD and DVD-RW) individually. Change the master/slave order. Bring in another known working DVD-RW and finally bring in my pristine original OEM SP2 disk incase all others are stuffed. It hangs at 14%. Besides taking this machine upstairs just so I can kick it down the stairs, anyone have any idea of what else maybe the problem and what I can do about it? <EDIT> RAM, why didn't any of you tell me to check the RAM? Decided to boot up of a Knoppix 5.1.1 DVD and received a ton of decompression errors. Then booted off of Ultimate BootCD and ran Memtest86 3.2 and found the first DIMM full of errors. Swapped out the DIMM for another and all is now good with XP installing happily. </EDIT> -- modified at 1:09 Wednesday 13th June, 2007
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
I hope there were some viruses formed it in the HardDrive. Please boot the System with an External Hard drive and Check it.
Regards, Satips.:rose:
-
Sounds like maybe there are some bad sectors on the drive. Try getting the low-level disk utilities from the manufacturer's website, or try another hard drive.
Gerald Schwab wrote:
Sounds like maybe there are some bad sectors on the drive. Try getting the low-level disk utilities from the manufacturer's website...
Good idea, never thought of it. Unfortunately the Seagate diagnostic utility shows no errors even when the full test is run.
Gerald Schwab wrote:
...or try another hard drive.
Maybe my only option, have to look around for a spare drive lying around to test with.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
-
Got me a fun one with a customers PC at the moment. I get called in when he computer won't even boot as far as the logon dialog. Just loads the background picture and hangs. So I boot off a Bart PE disk and backup his data and then start the installation of XP. I carry around a copy of my OEM with SP2 as I find most people still have a SP1 edition or even an original. I hate waiting for a SP to load when I can have it already there on first boot. It gets to about 17% of the way through copying the files and chokes telling me it can't read some file or other. No worries the disk is a little the worse for wear, so I throw in their SP1 edition and it hangs at 12%. I change the IDE cable, try each drive (DVD and DVD-RW) individually. Change the master/slave order. Bring in another known working DVD-RW and finally bring in my pristine original OEM SP2 disk incase all others are stuffed. It hangs at 14%. Besides taking this machine upstairs just so I can kick it down the stairs, anyone have any idea of what else maybe the problem and what I can do about it? <EDIT> RAM, why didn't any of you tell me to check the RAM? Decided to boot up of a Knoppix 5.1.1 DVD and received a ton of decompression errors. Then booted off of Ultimate BootCD and ran Memtest86 3.2 and found the first DIMM full of errors. Swapped out the DIMM for another and all is now good with XP installing happily. </EDIT> -- modified at 1:09 Wednesday 13th June, 2007
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
Michael Martin wrote:
Besides taking this machine upstairs just so I can kick it down the stairs, anyone have any idea of what else maybe the problem and what I can do about it?
You can always use a hammer... ;) Now more seriously, there are several tools to know if a disk is broken or not, but if you cannot boot up, you could download linux (as far as I know Redhat flavour does it) and start the installation process, it will scan you hard disk deeply and you'll know if it is OK or not... Hope this helps.
-
Michael Martin wrote:
Besides taking this machine upstairs just so I can kick it down the stairs, anyone have any idea of what else maybe the problem and what I can do about it?
You can always use a hammer... ;) Now more seriously, there are several tools to know if a disk is broken or not, but if you cannot boot up, you could download linux (as far as I know Redhat flavour does it) and start the installation process, it will scan you hard disk deeply and you'll know if it is OK or not... Hope this helps.
Joan Murt wrote:
You can always use a hammer
:laugh: :laugh:
Regards, Satips.:rose:
-
Got me a fun one with a customers PC at the moment. I get called in when he computer won't even boot as far as the logon dialog. Just loads the background picture and hangs. So I boot off a Bart PE disk and backup his data and then start the installation of XP. I carry around a copy of my OEM with SP2 as I find most people still have a SP1 edition or even an original. I hate waiting for a SP to load when I can have it already there on first boot. It gets to about 17% of the way through copying the files and chokes telling me it can't read some file or other. No worries the disk is a little the worse for wear, so I throw in their SP1 edition and it hangs at 12%. I change the IDE cable, try each drive (DVD and DVD-RW) individually. Change the master/slave order. Bring in another known working DVD-RW and finally bring in my pristine original OEM SP2 disk incase all others are stuffed. It hangs at 14%. Besides taking this machine upstairs just so I can kick it down the stairs, anyone have any idea of what else maybe the problem and what I can do about it? <EDIT> RAM, why didn't any of you tell me to check the RAM? Decided to boot up of a Knoppix 5.1.1 DVD and received a ton of decompression errors. Then booted off of Ultimate BootCD and ran Memtest86 3.2 and found the first DIMM full of errors. Swapped out the DIMM for another and all is now good with XP installing happily. </EDIT> -- modified at 1:09 Wednesday 13th June, 2007
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
I once had the same problem where my windows installation (on a new machine) just did not want to get past 53-55% no matter what I tried. It turned out that one of the ports on the CPU was blown - probably during installation. Now I do not know how this can cause the installation to get up to a certain point and then hang (or how the machine actually managed to switch on for that matter) but for me replacing the CPU colved the problem. This is just an idea. :-D