Cannot load any version of Windows onto PC

[rhm54]

Greetings,

When I try to load any windows operating system onto the following system it gets to the starting windows portion and just hangs up. I have tried windows 98, 2000, ME and XP and receive the same result each time.

Biostar Motherboard
Pentium 4 2.4 GHZ
512 MB ddr ram
40 GB hard Drive

If anyone has experienced this before please let me know.

 

[micker377]

Have you tried BIOS - set to "default" or whatever your BIOS calls "safe"? Did this computer work previously or is it a new build? If you can boot into DOS, run a memory check program.

 

[franklin97355]

If it's a new build make sure all parts are compatable and seated tight.

 

[edfair]

More often than not, I've found memory to be the problem when there is a failure to load windows.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[rhm54]

Thanks for the replies!

I have tried to boot the pc into dos by using the Windows 98 Disk and using the option "Start computer with CD-ROM Support" and the option "Start Computer without CD-ROM" Which both times the computer hangs at a blinking cursor after PCI Bus Scan Complete.

The PC is a brand new build and never had any operating system loaded into it. I have even disconnected the DVD RW drive and attached a regular CD Rom and received the same results.

 

[edfair]

And into DOS with a w98 bootdisk from

http://www.bootdisk.com

?
The error seems to be a boot problem off the hard drive. Try with DOS off a floppy and do a sys c: to reinstall the critical files. And look to the hard drive to see if it wrote anything before the reboot.
And use fdisk and see if the partition is active.
You may need to use one of the zero fill utilities to clean the MBR before the load will take. There are corruptions there that will prevent booting.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[ceh4702]

I would definitely use a utility to write zeros to the front of the drive that you can get from most drive manufacturers website.

Then reset the partitions and insure you have the jumpers on the hard drive set correctly. I have had one set up wrong on a diagnostic setting and there was not enough room to do anything. You need the windows setup disk with FDISK on it to get it to work for win95/98/ME. For XP the FDISK program is on the CDROM.

Format the hard drive and see if you can boot to the hard drive. You may have to set the active partition using FDISK if you have multiple partition or if FDISK thinks you have multiple partitions.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[wolluf]

is the bios virus checker enabled? If so, disable it.

 

[Kofy]

also check on APIC to see if its on or off as that too will sometimes cause problems during install.

 

[SYAR2003]

Kofy is right on it i think.
Remember that win98 don't support ACPI 2.0 with apic(irq0-23),only xp supports this .
If you want to multiboot you shold set the bios
with only APM not the enhanced acpi/apic functions .
And there is the hyperthreading , only supported by xp
(disabled in bios for older os)

syar

 

[geo87]

I assume you can enter bios.Check in bios to see that your hard drive shows up correctly.