Can't Install XP

Hello all.

Yet more computer troubles. I can't install Windows XP on my laptop. When Windows xp is running and the disk is inserted, the blue window comes up but when you click 'install windows xp', the window freezes for some time and then unfreezes but nothing changes.

I have tried just booting with the cd in the drive and when it prompts you to press any key to boot from the cd, i press the key and then after some whirring, the computer freezes. I have tried the cd on a different computer and its working fine.

any help is appreciated. just about ready to put foot through laptop.

 

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That's very odd.
Hmmm.... what model laptop is it?


Quick diagnostic question: whenever you try to boot from CD (the method when you reboot your laptop, set the CD as the first boot device in BIOS, and "press any key to boot from CD" when prompted) does it get to different stages of the blue startup screen before crashing? ------ what I mean is- if you booted it 10 times in a row, does it always freeze at the exact same spot, or does it freeze at different times?

 

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It never goes to the blue screen. It just has the prompt and the little animation of dots after the prompt. After 5 dots, I guess the computer simply continues loading Windows.

When I do press a key, the animation stops, I hear a lot of whirring, and then nothing. When I try to press a key afterwards, all I hear is a system beep.

 

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So you power on the computer,
it says "press any key to boot from CD,
you press any key,
the message pops up that says "setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration"
it whirrs for a second--then it freezes after three or four periods show up next to the word "configuration"


what model laptop is it?
do you know if the laptop has any BIOS features that could possibly disable the windows install routine?

 

No. No message about seup inspecting my computer's configuration. It freezes at the "press any key to boot from cd" prompt as soon as i press a key. this is a brand new cd-r ive copied windows onto.

its an hp pavilion zx5000

i dont know of any bios features that would do that. i doubt it. the boot order checks the cd drive before the hard drive, as expected.

 

did you finalize the disc?

a good way to check is to right click the drive with the cd in it and select properties.
look for disc free space. it should be zero
if it isn't the disc isn't finalized.

 

The disc was finalized. Like I said, it works on a different computer but not on the laptop. I'm going to try to burn again at a lower speed. If this doesn't work..

Nope. Still no luck. fuck.

 

is the disc a oem restore disc? restore discs only work for the computers they are sold with.

have you ever booted from the cdrom drive before?

does your laptop have a floppy drive?

 

laptop does not have a floppy drive. the disk is a generic win xp disk. i havent booted from the cdrom drive before but i doubt thats the problem. the disk isnt even functioning properly when i run it on windows xp. 'install windows xp' just freezes the window for some time and then does nothing. 'learn more about the setup process' loads the htm file as it should. 'check my system automatically' for compatibility also freezes the window for some time.

 

is there a system restore partition on you HDD? on my XP machine i have to delete the restore partition so i can do a fresh instal from my cd otherwise the restore comes from the partition.

om might be correct, you might not have your BIOS configured properly.

here is something to try,
create another disc with the following files
they will be in the root of your c: drive
NTLDR
NTDETECT.COM
BOOT.INI

after you create the disc see if it will boot your machine.

 

Ok I think I got a result which might maybe illumine the problem a bit. After uninstalling a ton of crap and restarting over and over again, I got the 'setup is inspecting your computers configuration' prompt. but then the screen goes blank (black) and the computer freezes.

my own thoughts from the way the cd drive is whirring away is that its somehow having trouble reading the cd. this really doesnt make sense since it can read other parts of the cd perfectly fine. i really don't know what to make of this.

ok, i ended up getting "inf file txtsetup.sif is corrupt or missing, status 32768. setup cannot continue. press any key to exit." after waiting quite a while.

maybe i shoulda mentioned that this is win xp with sp2 slipstreamed. dunno if that will help. weird though that the cd works fine on the other computer but turned up this error on the laptop.

 

Two potential reasons for a problem during installation, either:
Your RAM has errored addresses or is too small for install (Too small shouldn't be a problem in this case considering that your particular laptop ships usually with XP Home)

The other potential is simply that your disc and CD-drive needs a clean. I'm guessing you've done that to your disc however you might need a proper CD-drive cleaner otherwise you might accidentally put too much force on the actual read head and cause it to misalign.

I would suggest the cleaning and then attempt the install, if that still errors then you'll need to look into getting a program to check your RAM. You won't be able to repair the RAM unfortunately if it has errors, unfortunately it will mean finding a place to get a RAM replacement (And perhaps upgrade)

 

Further to Stryder's advice, check your BIOS and other firmware is up to date. I had W2K suffer a similar installation error on a Compaq server, and it was a BIOS error.

 

I doubt it's a hardware error. I tried HPs online diagnostic tool and the CD ROM drive passed when I used a different data CD but once I tried the test with the XP cd in the drive, it said "Test Failed. Unable to read a sector. Please try another non copy protected CD-ROM disk. (CD-ROM diagnostic (D

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)"

Besides which, I've just cleaned the lens. I'm pretty sure it's not a memory problem; other CDs work on this computer. I'm completely baffled since the Windows XP cd is working just fine on the computer I burned it on when I run it in Windows AND when I run it from boot. That computer is SP1 but the laptop is SP2. I've uninstalled Norton and other bloatware to no avail.

 

i had exactly the opposite problem.
i installed winME just fine.
after the install every cd i put in the drive wouldn't work.
i tried accessing the drive in explorer and was told i needed administrater rights to access it, winME doesn't require admin rights for anything.
reformatted and reinstalled was of no use.
finally i took it to a shop.
cause? bad cdrom drive.

did you overburn your cd? put more than the rated capacity on it?
some drives have a problem with overburned cd-r's.

 

Only other solution is to write another CD just burn it at a slower speed (4x or so)

 

Ok Stryder. I tried a different slipstream of SP2, without all the other customizations I made. I am getting the same problem as this guy: http://groups.google.com/group/micr...bebe22893b7/45127e08038db2ee#45127e08038db2ee

Stub loader for WINNT32 setup program has encountered a problem and needs to close.

At least I am getting the blue full screen to show up this time when I click install. Except that it's going nowhere.. Tried using the cd from boot and got something about cdboot: couldn't find ntldr

This is killing me..

 

I jokingly said "try installing Linux" earlier, then deleted it...... but now this problem has me curious.

I would recommend attempting to install one of the linux distros.

 

I might install Linux sometime in the near future but right now I don't have the time to learn something new and I will be needing to install some Windows specific software to do some work.

It could very well be that the stupid cd rom isn't bootable but I'm curious about the stub loader program. And if the cd rom of a laptop costing close to $2000 isn't bootable then I don't know what the F(*&$(&$ kinda dangerous thing I'm going to do..

 

Just a quick read from another site suggests that the Stub-Loader reads partition information, considering that you've had many failed installation attempts it's possible that your partition is now damaged and this is why you aren't getting any further.

You might have to start from the beginning with a Formatted Drive again, make sure it's clean before installing. If you've an old win98 disc, you can boot to the commandline from it and actual use FDISK and FORMAT to clean the drive up before installing XP, of course make sure you are using a FULL install disc and not just an Upgrade for this to work.