WinXP Home will not load 1

[Sival]

Trying to load WinXP on the following configuration:

Abit KT7-Raid Motherboard
AMD Athlon T-Bird 1.1Ghz
Samsung SP0411N 40GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
Diamond Viper V550 Graphics Card
192MB Viking SDRAM
300W PS

After partitioning and formatting, Windows starts to load files, then error messages start saying that system files will not load. They come up individually, if I retry, they again fail to load, if I skip, the next system file Windows tries to load comes up the same way, that it would not load. I have tried two different XP Home CDs, cleared CMOS, and run Samsung diagnostics on the hard drive and it checked out fine. This obviously has to be a hardware problem, but where? Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[kiddpete]

How was the drive partitioned and formatted?

 

[Freestone]

Sounds like memory problems. Running some memory tests may reveal something. Both of these memory testers will create bootable diskettes that automatically start their respective memory tests upon boot:

http://www.memtest86.com

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

 

[paparazi]

The most common causes are:
Memory , I note you have only 196mb ram, there is a possibility one of these sticks is faulty (XP does tend to turn up memory faults even thought everything was running OK with an older OS like 98) and as a footnote*
196mb isn't really enough for XP, once you install all your software and have a few apps running in the background you will probably find this leaves around 50mb for other things.
I recommend a minimum 256 but 320plus prefered.
After that I would suspect the CDrom itself
And lastly if all else fails carry out a low level format on the hard drive (use the free Samsung tools) available on the Samsung website, and start again.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[Daveyboy2]

I just had a box that would 'half' load. It would load the OS, but upon getting to the desktop and trying to do the MS updates, would crash. Brand new sticks of memory, brand new ASUS mainboard.

Turned out the memory was bad. Try using one or the other stick of memory, that may pinpoint the problem. It took me 15 hours to figure out that problem.

 

[mepott]

If memory doesn't solve your problem, try the CD drive. I had a similar problem where the CD drive turned out to be bad.

 

[bcastner]

You Receive a File Copy Error During Setup

When you try to install Windows XP, you may receive one of the following error messages:

. Setup cannot copy the file file_name. Press X to retry, Y to abort
where file_name is the file that Setup cannot copy, or:

. INF File Textsetup.sif is corrupt or missing Status 14 SETUP CANNOT CONTINUE

This behavior may occur if any of the following conditions is true:

. Your Windows XP CD-ROM is scratched, smudged, or dirty. Clean the Windows XP CD-ROM with a soft cloth, insert it into the CD-ROM drive, and then click OK.
. Your CD-ROM drive is not working correctly or the CD-ROM might be vibrating too much for the laser to accurately read the data. For more information about this problem, consult your hardware documentation, or contact the CD-ROM manufacturer.
. If you are using multiple CD-ROM drives, your computer may be trying to locate files on the wrong drive. If your hardware has a feature to disable CD-ROM drives that are not being used, disable the CD-ROM drives that you are not using.
. Your computer is over-clocked. Because over-clocking is very memory-intensive, decoding errors may occur when you extract files from your Windows XP CD-ROM.
Try to use the default clock timings for your motherboard and processor. For more information about how to do this, consult your hardware documentation or contact the motherboard manufacturer.
. Your computer has damaged or mismatched random access memory (RAM) or cache memory. For example, you might be using a combination of extended data out (EDO) and non-EDO RAM, or different RAM speeds.

. Decoding errors can occur even if Windows appears to be running correctly because of the additional stress that is put on your computer when Windows tries to extract files and access the hard disk.

To determine how to make your computer cache memory unavailable during Setup, see your hardware documentation or contact your hardware manufacturer.

. Your computer has Ultra direct memory access (DMA) turned on in the CMOS settings, and the data is moving too quickly.
Change from DMA mode to Processor Input/Output (PIO) mode to lower your data transfer rate. If this does not resolve the problem, lower your PIO mode settings. The higher your PIO mode settings are, the faster your data transfer is.

. You are using a third-party memory manager.

. There is a virus on your computer.

If you continue to receive this error message, copy the i386 folder from the CD-ROM drive to your local hard disk, and then try to run Setup from your hard disk.

Source:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310064

 

[Sival]

Thank you one and all for the advice. I had swapped a few memory modules around, and taken one out, but had not exhausted all of my memory options, nor had I replaced them all with new. After having read the replies, I replaced them all and Windows did load up just fine. So now I simply have to find the offending module(s). Thanks again, problem solved.