Problems booting from WXP Pro CD-rom

[frummel]

Hi I have had AMD Athlon 3000+ on an Asus K8N-Deluxe mainboard for a while now. Until this day it has been running fine under Fedora Core 5.

Now that I want to install Windows XP Professional on my computer, I can't seem to get past the 'Setup is checking your hardware configuration' screen. After this screen I get a blank screen after which drivers should load. But the screen stays blank.

It doesn't matter wether I use English or Dutch version, with SP1 or SP2. All halt in the same screen.

Any suggestions on the options?
No hardware changes have taken place at all since I purchased the PC.

 

[bcastner]

You promise me it is not overclocked in any way?

Remove any unecessary equipment. Have one network adapter, one video display adapter, and no USB Devices other than a necessary (for your circumstance) keyboard and/or mouse.

As plain vanilla as you can make it.

Second, if using SATA or RAID drives, have the drivers for these available on floppy diskette. Provide them to the install early when it asks for you to hit F6 for RAID or additonal drivers.

If you can still use Fedora, please update the BIOS for your mainboard. If not, use another computer and copy the new BIOS flash to a floppy and boot from the floppy afer changing the BIOS boot order.

When all of this is done, try the installation again.

Please let us know in the Forum your luck or lack of same.

Bill Castner




____________________________
Users Helping Users

 

[frummel]

Hi bcastner,

My PC is absolutely NOT overclocked in any way.

The issue with the mainboard is that the Deluxe version has eveything onboard. (USB, FireWire, LAN, USB)

The only part I can possibly exchange is my VGA adapter, which at this time is a AGP 4x type, which is appx. 4 years old. I hope I'm able to find a temporary replacement for testing.

Thanks for your fast reply.
I'll keep you informed.

 

[bcastner]

And no BIOS update?
You are absolutely sure of this?

Then you need to test your RAM. Believe me when I tell you this, the XP install is the most vigourous testing of RAM you can likely imagine. It is extremely fussy.

I want you to use DocMemory, as my older suggestions such as Memtest86 pass RAM that should not be passed anymore. The site requires free registration. The program is worth it; it is as fussy as Windows install can be:

DocMemory

http://www.simmtester.com/PAGE/products/doc/docinfo.asp

Let it run overnight.



____________________________
Users Helping Users

 

[frummel]

Hi bcastner,

I updated my BIOS after my second post here, because I found this tip on a Dutch website, where people with the same issues found this a solution. This however didn't provide me with any success..

I pulled my HDD from the SATA port on the mainboard, and booted from the Windows XP CD succesfully. However installing Windows XP on NO HDD is kind of out of the question I guess

I'll try erasing the entire HDD with Acronis, or PC Inspector eMaxx. Maybe Windows XP just won't install while there's only Reiser FS and ext3 partitions on the HDD.

I'll keep you posted on the results.

 

[frummel]

OK. Wiping the disk with Acronis Disk Director did the trick.

Thanks bcastner for your effort!