WinXP not installing...Any Ideas....

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cmgray74

Hi all,
I am looking for some ideas on why I am seeing a scenario happen when I
install Windows XP and how to get around the issue...

OK the System;

AMD 1.3GHz Athlon
MSI motherboard
512 megs Ram
40 Gig Hd Maxtor
Net Gear Network Card
Video,Sound are built in the motherboard.

The motherboard was a MSI board that Gateway bought for years and then
discontinued and dumped the board. I bought a few and have had no
problems with them. The board and CPU when I bought it was very
reasonable.

The system was running Windows XP flowlessly for over 2 years. I am a
developer and its my test box. Anyways I let different family members
use this machine occastionally and it got full of spyware/crud etc so I
decided to reinstall WinXP. I fdisked the drive and booted the WinXP
CD. Then I choose my partition and let the install format and begin
installing the O.S. to the Drive. The drive completes its formatting
and then does some sort of drive check and then the whole machine
freezes.

I have tried formatting the Drive before installing XP but no luck. I
have tried doing the quick NTFS Format and it freezes The machine just
freezes. I know I can install XP onto this machine as I ran it before
for two years. I wanna say I had to do something out of the ordinary to
get it to install but I just can't remember what anymore. Does any one
have any ideas on how to get this thing to install XP? Or pointers to
try?

It freezes just after the formatting of the drive, on the NTFS Quick
Format it froze right in the middle.

Any Ideas?

Thanks,
Chris
SolomonMan
 
Hi all,
I am looking for some ideas on why I am seeing a scenario happen when I
install Windows XP and how to get around the issue...

OK the System;

AMD 1.3GHz Athlon
MSI motherboard
512 megs Ram
40 Gig Hd Maxtor
Net Gear Network Card
Video,Sound are built in the motherboard.

The motherboard was a MSI board that Gateway bought for years and then
discontinued and dumped the board. I bought a few and have had no
problems with them. The board and CPU when I bought it was very
reasonable.

The system was running Windows XP flowlessly for over 2 years. I am a
developer and its my test box. Anyways I let different family members
use this machine occastionally and it got full of spyware/crud etc so I
decided to reinstall WinXP. I fdisked the drive and booted the WinXP
CD. Then I choose my partition and let the install format and begin
installing the O.S. to the Drive. The drive completes its formatting
and then does some sort of drive check and then the whole machine
freezes.

I have tried formatting the Drive before installing XP but no luck. I
have tried doing the quick NTFS Format and it freezes The machine just
freezes. I know I can install XP onto this machine as I ran it before
for two years. I wanna say I had to do something out of the ordinary to
get it to install but I just can't remember what anymore. Does any one
have any ideas on how to get this thing to install XP? Or pointers to
try?

It freezes just after the formatting of the drive, on the NTFS Quick
Format it froze right in the middle.
Click to expand...
If its not formatting from the XP disk try doing a simple format in fat32
from a bootdisk. www.bootdisk.com . It could be the harddrive or the XP
disk. Is it a burned copy or a commercial pressed disk? I would run the
MAXTOR diagnostics on the drive. Set the CMOS to defaults before trying the
format.
 
Hi all,
I am looking for some ideas on why I am seeing a scenario happen when I
install Windows XP and how to get around the issue...

OK the System;

AMD 1.3GHz Athlon
MSI motherboard
512 megs Ram
40 Gig Hd Maxtor
Net Gear Network Card
Video,Sound are built in the motherboard.

The motherboard was a MSI board that Gateway bought for years and then
discontinued and dumped the board. I bought a few and have had no
problems with them. The board and CPU when I bought it was very
reasonable.

The system was running Windows XP flowlessly for over 2 years. I am a
developer and its my test box. Anyways I let different family members
use this machine occastionally and it got full of spyware/crud etc so I
decided to reinstall WinXP. I fdisked the drive and booted the WinXP
CD. Then I choose my partition and let the install format and begin
installing the O.S. to the Drive. The drive completes its formatting
and then does some sort of drive check and then the whole machine
freezes.

I have tried formatting the Drive before installing XP but no luck. I
have tried doing the quick NTFS Format and it freezes The machine just
freezes. I know I can install XP onto this machine as I ran it before
for two years. I wanna say I had to do something out of the ordinary to
get it to install but I just can't remember what anymore. Does any one
have any ideas on how to get this thing to install XP? Or pointers to
try?

It freezes just after the formatting of the drive, on the NTFS Quick
Format it froze right in the middle.

Any Ideas?
Click to expand...


Run diags on the hd. Also check the caps on the mainboard; any
swelling or bulging and you'll have your answer.
 
JAD and All,

Its a Commercial Pressed Disk from Microsoft.

I booted from a old 95 boot disk (damn why do I still have this) and
formated the drive just fine and transferred the system (command.com
etc.) fine. I did this as a test after the first few times trying to
install. The drive is like a year or so old. I replaced the original
with 2 - 40 Gig Maxtors.

I had problems installing XP before on this machine and I cannot
remember what I had to do to get it to work. I am thinking I had to
turn off the sound card in the bios and something else before I
installed. Then once installed turn it back on(?). Its terrible when
you forget stuff. I will play some more tonight.

I was looking at the Maxtor utilities as I should "low level"/write all
zeros to the disk, as who knows what could have been picked up or
installed on this machine.

The only thing I think is weird and someone hopefully can chime in on
this is that I am only able to format NTFS. I swore on previous
installs I could format (using the Windows XP boot setup CD) Fat32. But
in all my windows installs attempts, on this machine, it does not get
me the option to format Fat32. Anyone have any ideas on why?

Thanks,
Chris
 
I booted from a old 95 boot disk (damn why do I still have this)
and formated the drive just fine and transferred the system
(command.com etc.) fine. I did this as a test after the first few
times trying to install. The drive is like a year or so old. I
replaced the original with 2 - 40 Gig Maxtors.

I had problems installing XP before on this machine and I cannot
remember what I had to do to get it to work. I am thinking I had
to turn off the sound card in the bios and something else before I
installed. Then once installed turn it back on(?). Its terrible
when you forget stuff. I will play some more tonight.
Click to expand...

There was an old Windows 9x recommendation about turning off/on plug
and play OS, I'm not sure whether it really worked.

Another notable Windows BIOS setting is with respect to ACPI or
whatever the setting is for remote desktop power management control
or whatever. If you install Windows with it enabled, you can't get
rid of it.
I was looking at the Maxtor utilities as I should "low
level"/write all zeros to the disk, as who knows what could have
been picked up or installed on this machine.
Click to expand...

Yes, use the utilities. Before my recent reinstallation of Windows
XP, I made a bootable disk with the manufacturers utilities.
The only thing I think is weird and someone hopefully can chime in
on this is that I am only able to format NTFS. I swore on previous
installs I could format (using the Windows XP boot setup CD)
Fat32. But in all my windows installs attempts, on this machine,
it does not get me the option to format Fat32. Anyone have any
ideas on why?
Click to expand...

Because you already "formatted the drive just fine"? Did it include
an option to leave it as it is?

Good luck.
 
Hi all,
I am looking for some ideas on why I am seeing a scenario happen when
I install Windows XP and how to get around the issue...

OK the System;

AMD 1.3GHz Athlon
MSI motherboard
512 megs Ram
40 Gig Hd Maxtor
Net Gear Network Card
Video,Sound are built in the motherboard.

The motherboard was a MSI board that Gateway bought for years and then
discontinued and dumped the board. I bought a few and have had no
problems with them. The board and CPU when I bought it was very
reasonable.

The system was running Windows XP flowlessly for over 2 years. I am a
developer and its my test box. Anyways I let different family members
use this machine occastionally and it got full of spyware/crud etc so
I decided to reinstall WinXP. I fdisked the drive and booted the WinXP
CD. Then I choose my partition and let the install format and begin
installing the O.S. to the Drive. The drive completes its formatting
and then does some sort of drive check and then the whole machine
freezes.

I have tried formatting the Drive before installing XP but no luck. I
have tried doing the quick NTFS Format and it freezes The machine just
freezes. I know I can install XP onto this machine as I ran it before
for two years. I wanna say I had to do something out of the ordinary
to get it to install but I just can't remember what anymore. Does any
one have any ideas on how to get this thing to install XP? Or
pointers to try?

It freezes just after the formatting of the drive, on the NTFS Quick
Format it froze right in the middle.

Any Ideas?

Thanks,
Chris
SolomonMan
Click to expand...

Another possibility, which you may have already tried, is to clean the
Windows XP CD. The tiniest bit of crud can cause an application to crash.
 
JAD and All,

Its a Commercial Pressed Disk from Microsoft.

I booted from a old 95 boot disk (damn why do I still have this) and
formated the drive just fine and transferred the system (command.com
etc.) fine. I did this as a test after the first few times trying to
install. The drive is like a year or so old. I replaced the original
with 2 - 40 Gig Maxtors.

I had problems installing XP before on this machine and I cannot
remember what I had to do to get it to work. I am thinking I had to
turn off the sound card in the bios and something else before I
installed. Then once installed turn it back on(?). Its terrible when
you forget stuff. I will play some more tonight.
Click to expand...

yes i was going to mention the OB sound, however if your not getting passed
the format this really hasn't come into play yet
I was looking at the Maxtor utilities as I should "low level"/write all
zeros to the disk, as who knows what could have been picked up or
installed on this machine.

The only thing I think is weird and someone hopefully can chime in on
this is that I am only able to format NTFS. I swore on previous
installs I could format (using the Windows XP boot setup CD) Fat32. But
in all my windows installs attempts, on this machine, it does not get
me the option to format Fat32. Anyone have any ideas on why?
Click to expand...
the 'dynamic' option is selected when doing the format?
 
JAD and All,

Its a Commercial Pressed Disk from Microsoft.

I booted from a old 95 boot disk (damn why do I still have this) and
formated the drive just fine and transferred the system (command.com
etc.) fine. I did this as a test after the first few times trying to
install. The drive is like a year or so old. I replaced the original
with 2 - 40 Gig Maxtors.

I had problems installing XP before on this machine and I cannot
remember what I had to do to get it to work. I am thinking I had to
turn off the sound card in the bios and something else before I
installed. Then once installed turn it back on(?). Its terrible when
you forget stuff. I will play some more tonight.

I was looking at the Maxtor utilities as I should "low level"/write all
zeros to the disk, as who knows what could have been picked up or
installed on this machine.

The only thing I think is weird and someone hopefully can chime in on
this is that I am only able to format NTFS. I swore on previous
installs I could format (using the Windows XP boot setup CD) Fat32. But
in all my windows installs attempts, on this machine, it does not get
me the option to format Fat32. Anyone have any ideas on why?
Click to expand...

There is a 32gig limit on fat32 partitions in XP.

If you create a partition equal or smaller than 32gig, you have a choice of
fat32 or NTFS. Anything larger than 32gig, your only choice is NTFS.
 
Hi all,
I am looking for some ideas on why I am seeing a scenario happen when I
install Windows XP and how to get around the issue...

OK the System;

AMD 1.3GHz Athlon
MSI motherboard
512 megs Ram
40 Gig Hd Maxtor
Net Gear Network Card
Video,Sound are built in the motherboard.

The motherboard was a MSI board that Gateway bought for years and then
discontinued and dumped the board. I bought a few and have had no
problems with them. The board and CPU when I bought it was very
reasonable.

The system was running Windows XP flowlessly for over 2 years. I am a
developer and its my test box. Anyways I let different family members
use this machine occastionally and it got full of spyware/crud etc so I
decided to reinstall WinXP. I fdisked the drive and booted the WinXP
CD. Then I choose my partition and let the install format and begin
installing the O.S. to the Drive. The drive completes its formatting
and then does some sort of drive check and then the whole machine
freezes.

I have tried formatting the Drive before installing XP but no luck. I
have tried doing the quick NTFS Format and it freezes The machine just
freezes. I know I can install XP onto this machine as I ran it before
for two years. I wanna say I had to do something out of the ordinary to
get it to install but I just can't remember what anymore. Does any one
have any ideas on how to get this thing to install XP? Or pointers to
try?

It freezes just after the formatting of the drive, on the NTFS Quick
Format it froze right in the middle.

Any Ideas?

Thanks,
Chris
SolomonMan
Click to expand...

"Quick Format" only clears the directory listings and doesn't do a complete
format, which is why it's 'quick'.

Since you potentially have a disk problem it's time to stop trying the
'quick' route. Pull out your Maxblast diagnostics floppy, low level format
the hard drive, and then run full diagnostics on it.

Then try installing XP on a the cleaned and freshly verified drive.
 
The 40 gig Maxtors have a proven lifetime of about 1 year.
Then they develop bad spots caused by heat and nothing
else. There are pictures on the web showing how the
heads actually melt and leave goop streaks on the disk.

johns
 
johns said:
The 40 gig Maxtors have a proven lifetime of about 1 year.
Then they develop bad spots caused by heat and nothing
else. There are pictures on the web showing how the
heads actually melt and leave goop streaks on the disk.

johns
Click to expand...

really amazing that you NEVER back your OPINIONS with a link. I googled for
a 30 minutes...nada doesn't surprise me. Although I am not a fan of
maxtor, I think you should shut the hell up.
 
Be glad to send you a very large box of them. I have
about 80 of them .. 2 CAD labs totally replaced every single
one of them. Ask anybody in the profession. Of course
a dumbass like you is not aware of what everybody else
already knows about the 40 gigs.

johns
 
johns said:
Be glad to send you a very large box of them. I have
about 80 of them .. 2 CAD labs totally replaced every single
one of them. Ask anybody in the profession. Of course
a dumbass like you is not aware of what everybody else
already knows about the 40 gigs.

johns
Click to expand...

Again NO LINK........if its so damn problematic and happening EVERYWHERE and
not just in your freaking lab why isn't it on the web and WHY DON"T YOU LINK
IT.......... DUMBASS. Especially the images of a melted head smearing goop
on the platter!

P.S. Why the hell do you have a large box of dead drives in your
possession? nostalgia? A conversation piece?
I think this is the same lab that you set up with no AC and burned up 41
rigs and your blaming maxtor drives to lay the blame elsewhere.
 
Again NO LINK........if its so damn problematic and happening EVERYWHERE and
not just in your freaking lab why isn't it on the web and WHY DON"T YOU LINK
IT.......... DUMBASS. Especially the images of a melted head smearing goop
on the platter!

P.S. Why the hell do you have a large box of dead drives in your
possession? nostalgia? A conversation piece?
I think this is the same lab that you set up with no AC and burned up 41
rigs and your blaming maxtor drives to lay the blame elsewhere.
Click to expand...


It is pretty prevalent. I don't need the web to tell me either; I
replaced several of the maxtor 40's, one twice in the same machine.
I've never seen the problem with the larger drives; one time Maxtor
even sent me a 60 in place of the 40, it never failed.
 
Chris Hill said:
It is pretty prevalent. I don't need the web to tell me either; I
replaced several of the maxtor 40's, one twice in the same machine.
I've never seen the problem with the larger drives; one time Maxtor
even sent me a 60 in place of the 40, it never failed.
Click to expand...

if you don't mind i'll take a web site before I start spouting the 'maxtor
dribble'.....as I said before I don't buy maxtor drives, however I don't
spout off that all 40 gig maxtors are bad. You both are under the impression
that because you bought 1-5 or 50 maxtor drives out of the thousands (maybe
millions) they produced, warrents a post everytime someone mentions maxtor.
Its not a 'in my experience' or 'my opinion' he's stating it as fact. If it
were that bad it would be very easy to find...like in the days of the IBM
deskstars.
 
if you don't mind i'll take a web site before I start spouting the 'maxtor
dribble'.....as I said before I don't buy maxtor drives, however I don't
spout off that all 40 gig maxtors are bad. You both are under the impression
that because you bought 1-5 or 50 maxtor drives out of the thousands (maybe
millions) they produced, warrents a post everytime someone mentions maxtor.
Its not a 'in my experience' or 'my opinion' he's stating it as fact. If it
were that bad it would be very easy to find...like in the days of the IBM
deskstars.
Click to expand...

I remember those, too. It took a while for the news to get out. A
failure rate only somewhat above average probably won't get that kind
of atention. I don't think all maxtors are bad, I'm using a 100gb
here and have been for several years. I just won't buy another 40gb
of theirs, ever.
 
All,
I ran the maxblast and the other max tool and it came back the drive is
fine.
I even "low leveled the drive" that took a while and ran all the tests,
all came back "congratulations....."

The machine just refuses to load the O.S.

I am going to play tonight some more. I have disabled the sound card
and I pulled the network card out of the Machine. I am now positive I
had to do something in the bios to make this thing work but can't
remember. Any ideas?

Also the board has no unusual swelling or anythign I can see.

As far as maxtor is concerned I have had many drives in the past and
have even had a few fail. Most I will blame on poor handling by
personel and I had one that out right failed after a some time and
heavy use. Thats why there are enterprise level drives and home use
drives I guess. I think all in all maxtor is a fine drive and I have
bought over the years Seagate, western digitals, IBM/Fujitsus, and even
a Nippon.

I have to finish installing three other machines tonight that I started
over my lunch hour today and then I will be back on this one.

I am open to any ideas.

Thanks for all the help,
Chris
 
All,
I ran the maxblast and the other max tool and it came back the drive is
fine.
I even "low leveled the drive" that took a while and ran all the tests,
all came back "congratulations....."
Click to expand...


How are the caps? Have you ran memtest86? I've never seen a case
where a mb setting kept win xp from loading.
 
All,
I ran the maxblast and the other max tool and it came back the drive is
fine.
I even "low leveled the drive" that took a while and ran all the tests,
all came back "congratulations....."

The machine just refuses to load the O.S.

I am going to play tonight some more. I have disabled the sound card
and I pulled the network card out of the Machine. I am now positive I
had to do something in the bios to make this thing work but can't
remember. Any ideas?

Also the board has no unusual swelling or anythign I can see.

As far as maxtor is concerned I have had many drives in the past and
have even had a few fail. Most I will blame on poor handling by
personel and I had one that out right failed after a some time and
heavy use. Thats why there are enterprise level drives and home use
drives I guess. I think all in all maxtor is a fine drive and I have
bought over the years Seagate, western digitals, IBM/Fujitsus, and even
a Nippon.

I have to finish installing three other machines tonight that I started
over my lunch hour today and then I will be back on this one.

I am open to any ideas.

Thanks for all the help,
Chris
Click to expand...
\

Try resetting and loading the CMOS defaults. Use the jumper or pull the
battery after you unplug it from the wall outlet.
 
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