win xp install help!

[rak306]

Per phenixdragon's suggestion I bought the following hardware:

Mobo: Asus P4R800-VM
CPU: A Celeron 2.4 GHz
Case: SimpleMax 101
RAM: 512
HDD 80 gbyte
CD-rw

When installing win XP, it got through some of the install, it then rebooted normally to continue with the rest of the install, then rebooted starting the normal boot of win XP home. At this point it hangs completely. Only unplugging power turns it off.

On the next reboot, a choice of safe mode is offered. If I boot in safe mode it comes up ok, but I can't figure out whay it won't boot normally. I've looked in device manager but can't find any bad devices.

Any help?

Rick

[stanger89]

It may be the video driver, are you using the latest one?

[gplasky]

Yes-check out the video drivers. Reset it back to just standard VGA drivers until you can get it to boot into Windows normally. Be careful with loading the drivers. Some may require SP1 installed before you can actually install the drivers. Remove any other "extra" cards or peripherals attached to your PC until after you get Win XP installed and running. Then add them back one at a time. Just use your video card, and everything on your motherboard. Don't add any other card until after.

Gerry

[rak306]

I'm trying with the min setup, just onboard motherboard stuff and HD and CD, no other cards. Using onboard video. I've tried uninstalling everythink I can think of and still no boot.

Rick

[Mike Young]

If its a new install (never worked) then could be need a bios update, or posibly choking on something in the chipset.
Its weird that it works in Safe, 90% of the time once you go into save and exit out it works fine again. Like the prevous poster said, make absolutely sure you are just using "standard vga" as your video driver. You could also go into your device mgr in Save mode and make sure everything is disabled.
Then agian, you may re-install and it could work fine.

mike/

[rak306]

Mike,

I've tried reinstall from scratch 3 times (booting from the CD drive, reformating the Hard Drive, complete reinstall). I only have the motherboard, a Hard Drive, a CD drive, mouse, keyboard, and monitor connected (video is ATI 9100, part of the motherboard).

Upon install of Windows XP home, after it reboots and hangs, I must unplug power. Then I boot, and it gives me the opertunity to go into safe mode. At this time there is only a generic VGA driver installed. I've tried uninstalling almost every device (USB, ethernet, etc). I've also tried disabling them. Regardless of what I try, I can boot in safe mode, but not in normal mode.

Rick

[snfexpress]

Have you tried:

a) installing motherboard drivers (video, lan, etc.)

b) installing SP1

[cbryan27]

I recently bought a new hardware for my gaming computer, which made a 3 PC domino effect, including upgrading my HTPC. Previously, they were all Win2k, but I went for XP this time.

I had very similar problems on two machines with new hardware. Flashing the bios and running all motherboard recommended updates as soon as I could resolved my issues.

1) If you have another PC, download any bios flash from the motherboard manufacturer and do the old-fashioned, boot-from-floppy update.
2) Try the xp install. XP is a little overzealous about loading drivers for hardware if you ask me.
3) Load NIC drivers (if necessary) and connect to the internet.
4) Update XP to current. Notice this occurs before loading/updating drivers for Video, audio, etc.
5) Load/update remaining hardware drivers. Reboot a couple times for stability's sake.

This worked for me. When you're frustrated, just remember me breaking my own rule of 'never more than one machine down' trying to get 3 up and running...

Good luck!

[rak306]

snfexpress wrote " Have you tried:

a) installing motherboard drivers (video, lan, etc.)

b) installing SP1 "

How do you install anything before windows XP SP1? I used the CD to boot Windows with a bare unformated disk. The motherboard CD will not boot.

I have tried uninstalling the Lan, video, and most everything on the motherboard. Of course, windows tries to reinstall them. So I say "cancel" to the reinstall. This didi not help. I also tried disableing them instead of uninstall. Also did not work.

cbryan27 wrote "I had very similar problems on two machines with new hardware. Flashing the bios and running all motherboard recommended updates as soon as I could resolved my issues. "

I find it impossible to believe that a board maker would put out a retail version motherboard that would not install windows XP. I can believe I've done something wrong, like misconfigure the bios. Or have a bad component.


" 3) Load NIC drivers (if necessary) and connect to the internet.
4) Update XP to current. Notice this occurs before loading/updating drivers for Video, audio, etc. "

When I boot, it gets to the windows XP home load screen, with the green dots scrolling across the bottom. After about 4 seconds of this, the screen freezes. The dots stop moving, and the machine is hung. This is about where I think Windows is switching to 32 bit mode.

I may try the bios update, as I've more or less run out of ideas. By the way at this point I don't have a floppy attached, but I guess I can fix that.

Rick

[olyar15]

Very odd. Sounds like a hardware conflict or some other sort of hardware problem.

How do you have your hard drive and CDROM drive hooked up? Verify that the jumpers on them are set correctly. Ideally, you want both set to master and both on separate IDE connectors. The other thing I worry about is flaky memory. If possible, try swapping out the memory with a known good module from another computer. Also, check the BIOS all settings are set to the default values and that nothing is overclocked.

[rak306]

olyar15 wrote " Very odd. Sounds like a hardware conflict or some other sort of hardware problem.

How do you have your hard drive and CDROM drive hooked up? Verify that the jumpers on them are set correctly. Ideally, you want both set to master and both on separate IDE connectors. The other thing I worry about is flaky memory."

The HD is on one IDE master. The CD is on the other also as master. I will try swaping memory.

Rick

[Hocky]

Try disabling the nic and the onboard sound in the bios and see if that helps. Take out any boards that are not needed. Also, reset the bios to the defaults. I’m sure you already know, but there should be an option for that in the bios configuration. It could be memory or it could be a hardware conflict, but I am betting on the later.

Good luck!

[rak306]

My latest. After installing win XP from scratch and having it hang on boot, I disconnected the CD-RW from the secondary IDE controller, and now it boots in windows in normal mode (Yea!)

Now keep in mind, it loaded the win XP software from this CD-RW drive. Also, there are no manufacture drivers for this CD-RW (samsung sw-252, the web site says it the standard XP drivers will work, and it recoginized the drive). So what are my options now? What is causing the system to not boot with the CD-RW? Is is possible that the power supply is being dragged down?

I'm glad I got win XP to boot, but I'm confused as to what it means and how to proceed.

Rick

[thatdude90210]

Try it on primary slave, check jumpers first.

Another thing to try is to see if there are updated firmwares for the drive.

[rak306]

thatdude90210 wrote

"Try it on primary slave, check jumpers first.
Another thing to try is to see if there are updated firmwares for the drive. "

Changed jumpers to secondary, moved it to the primary IDE controller as the secondary drive, and it hangs as the secondary as well.

There were no drivers on the samsung for this drive. It said use the standard XP ones.

[rak306]

I replaced the CD-RW with an old CD-ROM and now it boots ok. So I guess I'm done.

Extreme thanks to everyone who submitted input. You really helped. Tech support for the ASUS board was of no help they suggested that:

"The problem you are reporting is a stability issue and is usually caused by either the memory, power supply or the CPU running too hot. "

It was not unstable it was very consistant and would fail at the same point. The CPU was running 99 deg F and the memory was from an approved vendor. I was ready to switch motherboards. I actually purchased a new motherboard from local Compusa (but haven't opened it), but decided to try disconnecting the CD first.


Thanks again.

Rick

[thatdude90210]

No I meant the bios/fireware of the drive, such as link. Beware though, a bad flash could ruin a drive so you have to decide if it's worth the risk.

[insomniac]

hmmm nm

Originally posted by rak306
Per phenixdragon's suggestion I bought the following hardware:

Mobo: Asus P4R800-VM
CPU: A Celeron 2.4 GHz
Case: SimpleMax 101
RAM: 512
HDD 80 gbyte
CD-rw

When installing win XP, it got through some of the install, it then rebooted normally to continue with the rest of the install, then rebooted starting the normal boot of win XP home. At this point it hangs completely. Only unplugging power turns it off.

On the next reboot, a choice of safe mode is offered. If I boot in safe mode it comes up ok, but I can't figure out whay it won't boot normally. I've looked in device manager but can't find any bad devices.

Any help?

Rick

[rak306]

thatdude90210 wrote
"No I meant the bios/fireware of the drive, such as link. Beware though, a bad flash could ruin a drive so you have to decide if it's worth the risk. "

I see, I didn't realize CD-RW had firmware. I think I will try that drive on another computer. It only cost $36 so its not too bad even if it is a loss.

The thing is, if windows (probably via my motherboard's bios) can use the drive to install itself, but windows (after switching to 32bit mode), hangs, then to me its a windows driver problem, not a drive hardware (or firmware) problem<g>.

At least I have a workaround.

Rick

[olyar15]

It might be a DMA problem. My guess is that during install and in safe mode, it is running in PIO mode, but when Windows boots up normally, it would try to run the CDRW in DMA mode.