Windows Xp Setup..

[Karma Supra]

Bleh... poxy computers are windiong me up!!!!!

I rememebr asking this question ages ago, and no one could help, it then "sorted itself" and I am having it again....

Basicly My pc was long due a reformat to tidy it all up and de-junk it. Its something I do regularly and it usually isa quick and effortless job....

The problem is, on XP pro setup, when you get to the screen asking if you want to press enter to continue, F3 to exit or R to repair, everything locks up. The computer does not respond to anything at all.

I have tried three differnt keyboards, and unplugged any plugged in extras as well as removing any un needed pci cards (not that I should need to, nor have I in the past!)

Any ideas?? Its doing my head in!!!

[JappyBeast]

What spec PC is it?... its defo a hardware thing.

[Johndcfc]

As said it sounds like a hardware issue if you can't get past that part unless the cd is dirty or something trivial.

Also instead of rebuilding the whole machine everytime what you should do is get a copy of Acronis True Image then do the install - when installed use trueimage to make a backup of your drive. Then when you want to do a reinstall it will take you the best part of 5 minutes with no windows install to do!

[LORD_ED]

dude post it on tribe

[rav4merv]

Bleh... poxy computers are windiong me up!!!!!

I rememebr asking this question ages ago, and no one could help, it then "sorted itself" and I am having it again....

Basicly My pc was long due a reformat to tidy it all up and de-junk it. Its something I do regularly and it usually isa quick and effortless job....

The problem is, on XP pro setup, when you get to the screen asking if you want to press enter to continue, F3 to exit or R to repair, everything locks up. The computer does not respond to anything at all.

I have tried three differnt keyboards, and unplugged any plugged in extras as well as removing any un needed pci cards (not that I should need to, nor have I in the past!)

Any ideas?? Its doing my head in!!!

it sounds like it is a hardware fault is the hard drive making a clunking noise kerchung it could be the ram memory as that can have that effect or even the cpu will lock up in reinstall but sounds mostly like the ram but it could even be the cdrom as it has memory modules in it ... basically anything with memory in it could cause these problems as what it does is ,,, forgets what its doing half way through doing it.

[carday]

the slightest little mark or scratch on the CD will cause it to malfunction. had the same problem myself last year had to get another copy then everything worked fine

[Jinxed]

first thing id be looking closely at is bios settings .... espescially the voltage settings for the memory modules and the memory timing settings.....

[ssk2]

Yah, could be hardware - memory problems really do screw it up on install. If you have two sticks of memory try removing one at a time, or switching both with another stick that you haven't used in that pc .. etc.

[Karma Supra]

Cheers Guys.

Its definitely NOT the CD, as I have tried three!

I would say its not the hard drive either as it is before windows setup even gets onto hard drive fomatting/ partitioning, Also the disks works fine under all other use (using it right now!)

Its not bios settings as I have checked all them twice....

I am about to check the memory, although it was checed recently dn all came out ok!

[GT4 BOOSTER]

try it with 1 stick removed - then try swapping for the other. if all else fails install through windows as an upgrade.

[Keir]

unplug all the USB device's if the keyboard is usb obviusly leave that in.

[Karma Supra]

I have tried the memory trick and everything is disconnected.. even removed un essential pci boards!

[Nick SR]

Try a different optical drive, just a suggestion. and different IDE cable/port.

[Jinxed]

download a program called memtest and set that up ac instructions on a floppy.... then boot the pc with it in the floppy drive and run it for a few cycles.... if that passes your memory without errors then ... its not that :)

[rav4merv]

i work for a computer company i can get you a new decent pc for cheap. have a look at http://www.accomputerwarehouse.com

[Karma Supra]

Thanks, but I don;t need a new PC.... when mine gets out opf date, I replace the old bits

Still got this problem though... Moat annyoing... everything works fine I just can't re format and reinstall!!!

[selfbuild]

Karma.. the link below should format the drive.. download the free version of Active Killdisk. This will return the drive as new.

http://www.killdisk.com/

Alternatively, goto your hard drive manufacturers website and download their utility which will do a low level format on the drive.

[cfc1]

I think it could be the MBR (master boot record) this is the part of the Primary Drive that stores the partition table.

If you get hold of a win98SE boot floppy then at the dos prompt type fdisk/mbr.. this will clear and rewrite the master boot record.. and windows should load.. if not it could be memory problem.