Problem w/Boot Order Dell GX150

Hi,

Trying to Install XP on an old Dell GX150

The machine is strange to begin with.

BIOS:
Primary Drive 0 ..... Hard Drive --Press Enter shows 41 GB HD [Hard Drive Jumper set to CS] (considering setting Jumper to Master)
Primary Drive 1 ..... Not installed
Secondary Drive 0 .... CD Reader
Secondary Drive 1 .... not installed
==================

BOOT SEQUENCE (Selections)
Hard drive
Floppy
Floppy Drive .. not installed
Floppy Drive .. not installed

There is no CD SELECTION! (my problem)

=======================

After POST it stalls with a message:

Primary Hard Drive not found.
Secondary Hard Drive not found.
Strike F1 to continue, F2 for Setup.

Pressing F1 goes to the HD boot.

They bought a machine and a hard drive. The hard drive has an English version of XP Home.

They want me to install a Spanish version of XP Pro.

Can't do that until I can a) select the CD as a boot device or hit some other Function key to get a Boot Menu to appear.

Tried F12 but that's not working (and I'm not sure that it would anyway) because of the drives not being found.

I've never seen this before.

Any ideas?

Appreciate any help and suggestions

thx

 

Based on the machine's age, I'm assuming both the HDD and CD drive are IDE (80-pin) connections.

* Manually setting the master/slave pins on both drives is a good idea. Be sure the cable(s) match up to the corresponding master or slave setting for each drive.

* Check power to each drive. You should be able to lightly touch the exterior of the HDD case to see if it's spinning. If the CD drive has power, you should either hear it spin or be able to hit the eject button to open the tray.

* No luck yet? Unplug the machine, remove the BIOS (button size) battery from the board, wait about 60 seconds and reinsert it. This will clear the BIOS - you'll have to reset the date/time but it may also clear any glitches.

* If the drives are getting power, try changing out the IDE cable(s) from the drive(s) to the board.

If none of these things solve the issue, please repost. If the PC won't recognize either drive, my suspicion is the drive controller on the motherboard is bad.

Hope this helps.

 

Most likely a problem with jumpers or cables.
The most reliable jumper settings are Master/Slave rather than CS so I would use those.
You have two IDE cables so each device on its own cable. Set each HD and CDROM to Master according to the markings on each device. (HD should be on the label or look up the model number on the net. CD jumper settings should be above the pins.) Connect each to its own cable on the end connector (not middle). Other end to motherboard.

See if any difference in BIOS. If CD is still not recognized disconnect the HD and see if the CD is recognized by itself. If still not recognized connect it to the end connector on the HD cable (by itself no HD) and see if it is recognized.

 

Thanks for the replies.

I've never seen anything like this. Ever!

Folks, this is not my first rodeo.

I've been doing this computer crap for more than 34 years now. If I had a dollar for every time I've set up a machine and installed something I could buy a new Prius.

I did not want to complicate my first post (these are ALL of the things I have done; most of them before my first post)

Took battery out to reset the BIOS

I have gone back and forth from CS to Master on Jumper settings (I read somewhere the Dell is persnickety, and likes CS so I tried both. Normally I like to set Jumpers to what they are Master / Slave I rarelly use CS)

I did stand alone CD w/no HD (still not selectable in the boot sequence)

I switched cables.

Cable on HD only has Master Connect no slave option.
======

I did fix the Hard Drive not found error, which now allows for F12 network boot, but that didn't help at all because it cycles right into the Hard Drive boot for the home edition.

It seems that the BIOS Dell uses does not like the "Auto" Setting on HD's that are not installed. It tries to find them and complains if it can't. I set the Primary and Secondary (slaves) to OFF.

The end result of that is the POST is much, much quicker.

Regarding Power...

Remember that I said in the first post regarding the BIOS setting...

I can "see" the Hard Drive and the CD ROM in the BIOS screen (where you set the time/date and other things) which is GOOD! Which also means that I have to have power in order to do that.

No power? Then no device recognition ... and ... I did say pressing F1 goes to the HD boot (meaning it BOOTS the Home Edition of XP; can't do that without power either)

What is BAD (and ultimately my Show Stopper) is that the CD ROM does NOT appear in the list of things I can BOOT from.

I have NEVER seen that happen before. For me it's always been if the device is "found" in the BIOS screen that displays the devices, I have ALWAYS been able to SELECT the "found" device for a boot sequence order.

No matter what I do I have the same 4 options for the boot sequence

HARD DRIVE
FLOPPY DRIVE
Floppy Drive NOT INSTALLED
Floppy Drive NOT INSTALLED

I can reorder them or "uncheck" them.

That's it!

There is no way to change any of the preset selections, that make up the boot sequence order to choose the CD.

On top of that, I can't upgrade the BIOS. I don't have a computer with a floppy.

The 40GB HD that they gave me already had XP Home on it. I was confused, they didn't buy it it was from their old machine that had a dead MOBO.

(also while I am thinking about it; I am in Mexico where everything thing is ancient and at the end of its product life cycle.)

Earlier (this is a part that I left out because it wasn't relevant) I had fired the computer up.

I didn't have the password for the user account so I went into Safe Mode and picked the Administrator account.

I loaded all of the drivers for the DEL GX150 and everything was working fine. I used it for about 3 hours.

Later in the evening when the client logged into their account is when XP started asking for activation. And then after that failed (they didn't have their old key) the Admin account no longer worked either.

Now that getting on that machine is impossible, it closes my only other door for a BIOS upgrade. Dell has a BIOS dwnld that can be executed from the Hard Drive.

I can't do it from a USB either.

The only option I have and it's a long shot, is that I have another computer that allows me to boot from CD.
I'm grasping at straws here.

If I I put the HD in that computer; load the OS w/no drivers and put it back into the DELL and hope and pray that there is some compatibility that will allow me to bring it up into safe mode I might have a chance.

I'm still buffaloed as to why the BIOS can see the CD but can't select it as a BOOT device.

Sorry this was soooooooooo long.

 

Looks like you have tried just about everything. A couple of thoughts.
1) Since we are looking for something picky check that your IDE cables are connected to the appropriate motherboard connections. Meaning that the cable going to CDROM is connected to the CDROM/Primary 1 connection on the motherboard rather than the HD/Primary 0 connector. Shouldn't make a difference but you never know.

2) Try no AC power, removing battery to clear CMOS, replacing battery and then have only the CDROM connected and power up. Does CDROM still not show in boot order?

3) Move the floppy to your computer (assuming it has a floppy connector) for the purpose of writing the BIOS floppy then reconnect it to the Optiplex to run the BIOS upgrade. There do seem to be many Boot Order/Menu revisions to various Bios updates: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19275243.aspx

4) Someone mentioned this old trick which might work

So you would put the HD in your computer as Master. Boot from the installation CD. Go through it copying the files necessary to boot off the HD for the rest of the installation. When it goes to reboot, power off the computer. Remove the HD put it in the Optiplex along with the CD and start the Optiplex. The Optiplex should boot off the HD to continue Windows installation and as long as it can read the CD to copy the rest of the files then installation should finish.

 

Another thing that confuses me is that when this machine was new it had an operating system loaded on it.

There was a time when the BIOS worked correctly.

Does anyone have any notion of what could cause a change in that inherit behavior?

 

I owned an old Optiplex GX100. It was unable to boot from the CD ROM; that is a hardware fact. There is no way around that.
But, if you had an internal floppy drive, you can boot from that and force it to boot from the CD ROM. I see the computer doesn't have a floppy drive.
Unfortunately the floppy drive set up in my old Dell was very proprietary so I'm not sure just any floppy drive would fit properly.

If you can get a floppy drive installed, I'll go through the routine about making a special floppy (similar to an ISO) that will list the CD ROM and allow you to boot from it.

 

The original OS would have been imaged directly to the HD at the factory it wouldn't have been installed by way of CD. Dell doesn't install OS individually on each machine.

The fact that so many BIOS updates address the boot menu points to this being a known problem. Which BIOS version are you running--it should be listed on the Dell screen?

Since plodr had the same problem with the same model it does sound like it is a hardware problem. @plodr, I think this machine does have a floppy drive but he has no way of making a floppy to boot in another computer unless this floppy drive will work if installed in another computer. Do you have an example of what a bootdisk that would allow boot to CD would look like? I took a look at bootdisk.com but I haven't used a floppy in many years.

 

On this computer DELL's color coded cables with the pull tabs plug into the MOBO from the side at the edge of the form factor not from the top. Aside from that the connectors are spaced so that the cables are vertical to the CD and HD respectively In this machine the CD and HD are side by side rather than the vertical placement you see on most machines. I even tried, on time, to connect the CD solo into the HD primary spot. No go there either.

Nope! Did that (one of the first things I did to see if it would make a difference.) I always disconnect the power when changing anything and even though I don't have a wrist / ground strap I always grab the frame to be grounded. Made no difference. Again, what is so frustrating about this is that this quirky machine seems to have the four options for the boot sequence hard coded or it's a selectable bitmap considering how rigid the selections are

Yeah that was one of the things I thought of late last night. Hey, I can put the floppy in my machine. Fantastic idea! Until I realized that I don't have a slot for a floppy on my machine or the other computer that I have.
And, as for BIOS updates it harkens back to my newer comment, just before this, that at one time this machine DID recognize the CD ... or ... maybe NOT.
DELL could have installed preloaded hard drives in them during the manufacturing process.

YES! :clap
BRILLIANT!!!! :dancer (couldn't see the forest for the trees)

That one escaped me. That should work by golly! By golly? Who says that anymore?
It's a variant of my approach, but BETTER! Because I stop short of where the specific drivers for the machine would be installed. It's only installing the files necessary to boot from the HD!

My old method would have been to install the OS on an old HP machine, circa the same time period and then hope I can get it up and running in the DELL via safe mode, if it could come up with other drivers installing.

Great! I'll try that later today.

Wonderful suggestions!

The sad thing is that here in Mexico, where people are dirt poor and they have no notion of what professional services should cost, the best I can hope to get out of this deal (about 7 hours of work, research, hair pulling, cursing, ranting and raving, etc. not to mention that I have not actually installed the OS yet) is between 200 and 300 peos if that! (200.00 MXN = 15.1262 USD | 300.00 MXN = 22.6423 USD)

Retirement, where I still have to work to bring in a little extra cash because of circumstances beyond my control, is so much more "fun" than I expected.

 

And so it goes, from bad to worse.

This DELL Computer has Demons or is full of Poltergeists.

I take the BRILLIANT suggestion, I load XP (on an HP Machine) up to the point where it just installs the files necessary to reboot from the hard drive.

I put the HD back in the DELL along with the CD into the CD reader; fire up the machine and after a few moments I get a blinking cursor.

I'm thinking after several tries, maybe there's some a mismatch it needs more stuff (although my gut feeling is that the core files should be enough) so I put the hard drive back into the HP machine, it boots up (as expected) and finishes the install.

Back to the DELL and still the blinking cursor.

Sooooo I try:

Safe mode w/ networking : blinking cursor - I can't tell what system file it stops at it clears the screen to quickly.
Safe mode :blinking cursor
VGA Mode: blinking cursor

All of these options are in Spanish, and there are like 6 of them. I am assuming that one of them should have been the option to get to the DOS prompt at least.

Nothing I do gets me past a blinking cursor.

What has me puzzled now is that I got something yesterday with a version that we could not activate.

Now I am completely perplexed again.

It worked on the HP machine right after the core files were loaded and doesn't on the DELL.

I hate old computers.

 

In the BIOS is it possible to highlight "Secondary Drive 0 .... CD Reader" shown under devices and press the space bar to enable it?

I found this method on resetting the BIOS on a Dell. Not sure if it will work for you though.

 

I reset the BIOS several times by removing the Battery and waiting for a long time, more than a few hours to let any of the small capacitors bleed off any current.

I also reverted to default settings.

As I stated earlier, the ONLY devices that I can choose from and also reorder when it comes to the "Boot Sequence" are those I mentioned before.

The Hard drive, the floppy drive and two unknown devices.

I get the same selections with or without the CD being present. If the hard drive is not present then I get just the floppy drive.

But, that is not the issue anymore.

For reasons I can't explain, the computer refuses to show graphical information.

I started with a computer that had a previous OS that only needed activation key which the client could not provide.

So, that means I have witnessed this DELL computer displaying windows and using a mouse.

After the fight with the BIOS and BOOT order I resorted to loading the OS from another machine.

These are the last steps I performed before declaring the machine a total loss.

1) I took the Spanish version of XP and loaded it up (using an HP machine) to where the core files got copied on to the HD. I put it into the DELL, along with the CD to finish the install and got a blinking cursor a few moments after POST.

2) I took the HD finished the install on the HP and put it back into the DELL and still got the blinking light.

3) I repeated the process with the HP machine with the same HD and everything works as it should. The machine reboots, installs the OS.

4) So that I would not have to fight two things: a foreign language barrier and (hardware / software problems), for peace of mind and the ability to read and understand all of the messages I duplicated steps 1 & 2 on the machine with my English Version of XP. Same results. Blinking cursor.

This time in Safe Mode, regardless of which option that I choose, it hangs at Mup.sys. What is Mup.sys anyway? Who names a file "Mup"?

I can visually see the startup info when the machine first starts. I can read and navigate the BIOS screen.

We've come a long way since the green character only CRT's of the 60's, 70's and early 80's. The information in the BIOS screen, for all intents and purposes, is displayed on an LED monitor in pixels which means that the on board video is working at some primitive level.

Why the machine hangs or can't display anything after selecting the basic VGA mode is beyond me at the moment.

The only thing that I can conclude is that something went wrong with the on board video. It would be similar to you trying to diagnose why your car is not starting because of a perceived electrical problem (the fuel pump was working when you started poking around to fix it) but during the process, unknown to you, the fuel pump goes out.

This demon possessed computer is the first one that has kicked my arse in a very long time with behavior that can only be x-plained as outer worldly.

Thanks, to everyone, for your contributions. I appreciate everyone's time and effort!

I am still open to any suggestions for something that I might have missed regarding the free fall from fully functioning (needing a correct CD key) to hanging at Mup.sys with no graphics.

 

Mup.sys is one of the most frequent stop points for a messed up XP installation. In and of itself it has no relevance to the problem other than that we know the XP installation is not working/complete.
I don't think you have a graphics issue.

A couple of last things that have come to mind.

1) Swap out a known good CMOS battery as a weak one can cause weird problems.
2) Disconnect the floppy drive and set it to OFF/Disabled in the BIOS. Take the Hd with just the XP boot files and see if any difference or still blinking cursor.
3) Swap out an IDE cable with Master/Slave connectors for the HD one which only has one connection. Then try to connect both HD and CDROM to the Primary motherboard connection with the HD jumpered as Master and the CDROM jumpered as Slave. Set BIOS so that Primary 0 and primary 1 are both Auto. Set Secondary to both off/disabled. See if CD is in boot sequence.
4) Swap out the CDROM with one from one of your other machines see if it is listed as boot device.

Which version of BIOS are you running--A0(?)

 

In addition to sach2's good suggestions I would like to add the following. In reading the thread, it is my understanding that you have a floppy in the GX150. If you can in any way get a hold of a USB floppy drive, you can use PLOP boot manager. Create the bootable floppy of Plop and tell it to boot the CD drive. I have used this to boot to a USB device on a computer that does not recognize bootable USB. It can also boot a CD that is not recognized as a boot device.

You can install the Plop boot manager to the Hard drive. Maybe you can attach the Hard Drive to your other computer, install PLOP then put it back into the GX150. The boot manager will start and then tell it to boot the CD drive. Then have XP partition and format the drive.

http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html#intro

 

Thanks for the reply.

Some great suggestions...

Hmmm.. where do I begin.

When I used to do this in the USA, years ago, I had a work bench, I had access to tools (right now I have a phillips and a pair of channel locks LOL), spare parts: HD's, Floppy drives, batteries, jumpers, cables, memory, chips, CD's DVD's, and a bucket load of other things to work with and the money to go out and buy things from fully stocked stores that had had new products for sale that were close by.

As I might have said earlier about my financial situation .. I also suffered some serious health problems and the financial set backs are serious. By that I mean that I live a day to day existence scraping by here in Mexico (its a long a story to relate as to why I don't go to the USA; no family, sold my house, and most of my stuff.

I was diagnosed with a TI and thougt I was going to be dead in 3 years; that was two years ago. Not to mention the fact that I had my Passport, DL and other documentation stolen, ... it's a mess!

Here in Mexico it is hard to find a computer store that's not being run out of someone's house and if you do it's not much of a store and nothing is close to me.

Taking the suggestions one by one.
Here is a picture of the machine.
http://www.limundo.com/originalslika-5836812.jpg
The computer I am working on is like the computer on the left that has the blue cable going to the HD (the comp does not have the green plastic air flow gadget)

1) I have three batteries to work with. The battery in the HP machine which is dead, the battery in my machine which is probably as bad if not worse than the battery in the DELL. I don't want to mess with my machine because it is old and persnickety as well and whenever I do anything to it; swap drives, test drives, test memory etc. the BIOS takes several tries before it finds its sanity. At the moment it is still a tad insane because both of my IDE drives stopped working (showing up in the BIOS) about three months ago. I am inclined to think that the battery is not an issue for two reasons.
1) the machine, just two days ago did display a version of XP that was on the 40GB hard drive from the clients old machine and

2) I've never turned it on where I had to reset the date, time or anything else which is what I have to do on the HP machine every time I unplug it.

2) Don't see how a floppy would affect the graphics but I will try that.

3) As you can see by the picture, I'll have to take the drives out and piggyback them on the chassis. Not a problem, I'd be interested in seeing how that works. That may work. Although, I did try putting the CD all by itself one time using two different cables and tried that on both MOBO connectors as well as doing the Master, Slave, and Cable select.

4) Tried that with a different CD and a DVD. I also tried a different cable (those parts listed are the only things I have to experiment with) as well.

BIOS version is AO5.

The machine is too old to call DELL and simply ask does a GX150 with a BIOS Version A05 have the capability to see and USE as well the CD in a boot sequence?

I'll get back with you on my progress later on.

Thanks.

 

Thanks for that bit of info. I don't have a floppy disk and even if i did have one I don't have a functioning computer that has a floppy drive in it. The HP doesn't have a drive or a connector on the MOBO for one.

The same is true for my computer.

 

Great suggestion... thanks!

Finding a USB floppy drive near to where I live (hopefully within walking distance) at a price I could afford (free) wouild be as likely as finding a 22 carat diamond that is about 1/2 the size of the Hope Diamond in my sock drawer upstairs.

It would be something nice to try.

 

I'm going to see if I can find time to experiment with an old machine tomorrow. When you let the boot files be written in the HP was the Dell's HD the only HD attached to the HP?

I wouldn't worry about the CMOS battery. You have already tried the CDROM by itself on the Primary 0 connection on the motherboard and it wasn't detected as bootable so not much point in connecting it as slave with the HD on the same cable.

The reason I wanted you to disconnect the floppy was just to eliminate that from the bootable device list. I would still disconnect the floppy then clear CMOS(remove battery for a minute or two with AC disconnected) then put back together and try with the HD with just the boot files. Hit F12 and see what is in the list and manually select HD. I added clear CMOS because it looks like your version of BIOS keeps a running track of all previous bootable devices so clearing CMOS is necessary to remove the floppy entry from that list. I'd also like to see if that clears the two other floppy not installed listings thus leaving only HD. You may have to disable floppy in BIOS after the CMOS reset to get rid of the F1 beep.

 

My thought related to having more than one HD in the HP when copying files before the first reboot is that if you had two HD installed then the boot.ini could be pointing to the wrong HD when you put it back in the Dell which would explain the blinking cursor.

*****
Oh and FWIW, the old machine I was testing on is a Dell and it does seem to prefer cable select over Master/Slave. I always tell people to use Master/Slave but this machine is picky about that and prefers cable select. I don't think it is relevant in your case since all the devices are being seen but the CDrom is not being added to the bootable devices list which is different.

 

I don't think the computer would boot from a USB drive. It needs an operational version of windows to see the USB drive.

Here is the info page for the computer
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opgx150/en/ug/index.htm

I wasn't able to see much that could prove useful.

 

Sorry it took so long to say to everyone, thanks again for the suggestions; was feeling a little under the weather and I was really tired of beating my head against the wall:banghead with this machine. In the old days, frustration used to be using a breadboard to wire up a printer or modem to a computer because the standardization for connectors was still in its infancy.

I had read that Cable Select was preferred somewhere else on the net for this machine.

99% of the time I like to set Master/Slave configurations.

Ok, so I set the devices to CS and no difference.

Regarding Boot.ini if you will recall that I am stalling at Mup.sys, I can't get THERE without having gone past the Boot.ini and yes there was only one hard drive present (attached is a better word) when I installed the core files.

I took the disk out of the DELL and put it back into the HP and it worked perfectly.

Going back to trying to start a car it's like the fuel pump died while trying to check the electrical system.

IS IT POSSIBLE? Remotely possible that there are two video modes of graphics capabilities within the tiny on board GPU of this machine as to where the ability to paint a screen (even with fundamental VGA Graphics) in XP has stopped working but the ability to display the BIOS and Windows Boot works?

This is the hurdle that I can't seem to crack.

Why did this machine display version of XP (that needed an activation) and now, it won't display anything other than BIOS screen or the DOS Based Boot Options (Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, etc.)

That's the conundrum that I can't wrap my head around.

IT ... MAKES ... NO ... SENSE ... TO ... ME!

I just loaded the core files again. Blinking cursor ... restarted, with F8 and selected VGA mode ... blinking cursor.

 

Taking out the floppy modified the Boot Sequence to:
HD
Floppy Drive (unknown Device)
Floppy Drive (unknown Device)
Floppy Drive (unknown Device)

Still had four devices or four selections. I've reset the BIOS about 3 times now and nothing changes in that respect.

Perhaps that's what clobbered the video.

Nothing else is making any sense to me, so it could be that resetting the BIOS did something that the machine does not like when it comes do displaying graphics.

 

Sorry it took so long to say to everyone, thanks again for the suggestions; was feeling a little under the weather and I was really tired of beating my head against the wall:banghead with this machine. In the old days, frustration used to be using a breadboard to wire up a printer or modem to a computer because the standardization for connectors was still in its infancy.

I had read that Cable Select was preferred somewhere else on the net for this machine.

99% of the time I like to set Master/Slave configurations.

Ok, so I set the devices to CS and no difference.

Regarding Boot.ini if you will recall that I am stalling at Mup.sys, I can't get THERE without having gone past the Boot.ini and yes there was only one hard drive present (attached is a better word) when I installed the core files.

I took the disk out of the DELL and put it back into the HP and it worked perfectly.

Going back to trying to start a car it's like the fuel pump died while trying to check the electrical system.

IS IT POSSIBLE? Remotely possible that there are two video modes of graphics capabilities within the tiny on board GPU of this machine as to where the ability to paint a screen (even with fundamental VGA Graphics) in XP has stopped working but the ability to display the BIOS and Windows Boot works?

This is the hurdle that I can't seem to crack.

Why did this machine display version of XP (that needed an activation) and now, it won't display anything other than BIOS screen or the DOS Based Boot Options (Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, etc.)

That's the conundrum that I can't wrap my head around.

IT ... MAKES ... NO ... SENSE ... TO ... ME!

I just loaded the core files again. Blinking cursor ... restarted, with F8 and selected VGA mode ... blinking cursor.

 

The display really should not be the problem. BIOS and XP in safe mode or Xp in VGA mode should all be using minimal graphics. If it can display BIOS is can display XP logo. So if it isn't displaying XP logo it is not loading that far.

The blinking cursor means it is going to a given location to find boot files and they are not there so it halts everything.

Now, I just want to make sure that you are going to the first reboot when you are copying files in the HP. You start from the CD it inspects Hardware and copies some basic files needed to begin setup. Then it copies some more files and says it will reboot in 15 seconds or hit <enter>. That is where you want to shut down and swap the HD out.

So assuming you have been doing it that way, I am guessing that it is a problem with the Dell reading the MBR. Or perhaps the HP is using the CD to boot and then restarting the setup process. Try copying the core files to the HP then at the first reboot leave it in the HP but after it reboots let it start from the CD again so "hit any key to boot from CD" so that it does the HD inspection again. Now this time hit R for repair and get to the command prompt.

At the prompt use the command type boot.ini and verify that the default line looks like this particularly that the rdisk number is 0.

Code:

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

Then type fixmbr
Then shutdown and try it in the Dell again. Use F12 to manually select the HD as the boot device in the Dell. See if you still have the blinking cursor.

 

Thanks very much for the reply.

--------------------------------

Just so I could be certain, I reviewed the boot process and it confirmed my thinking that the boot.ini file is accessed prior to OS or Safe Mode selections.
http://vittoriop77.altervista.org/download/XP_Boot_Process.pdf
and
http://gegeek.com/gegeek_articles/xp+boot_process/xp_boot_process.htm
The .pdf file:
If the selected operating system is XP, NTLDR will continue the boot process by locating and loading the DOS based NTDETECT.COM program to perform hardware detection. By this time it will have already read boot.ini

Just a side note: It's sad, seriously sad that even way back in 2001 when XP came on the scene Microsoft was still resorting to real and protected CPU modes and DOS based commands instead of creating something new. It's probably still the same in Windows 8. I'll bet there's still some of that horrible legacy CP/M code drifting around.

Ok, so, now my suspicion is that it's hanging during the NTDETECT phase.

I don't know why. Remember, I started this process with a WORKING copy of XP that was already installed on the hard drive from an old machine (not the DELL or the HP) that simply needed an activation key that the client could not provide because they bought the machine used (this is Mexico) and they were probably the 9th people to own it.

There is no Recovery mode in Spanish Version. Hey it's Mexico light switches turn on and off sideways and tap water is not safe to drink. Surprised?

So I used English CD version so I could go into recovery mode and I did everything; several times fixmbr, fixboot, bootcfg /rebuild and more. The only thing I did not do was put seatools in and look at the MBR.

Nothing changed.

After all of that, I went back deleted and created the partition and installed the English Version again so I can understand what's going on.

When, I went into the Recovery mode to look at the boot.ini file, the English version asked for the Administrator password (which we have not supplied yet because we only have copied the core files and do not have a full installation.)

Which leads me to this.

Microsoft is one of the laziest, sloppiest companies when it comes to designing software.

Since 1981, I've never experienced pretty much every problem that is under Microsoft's umbrella, but not this exact problem.

So, this is my first rodeo for even contemplating or trying to use Safe mode to diagnose a stalled installation process with a partially installed OS.

If Microsoft had designed their pile of crap with any intelligence, those options would not be available during the installation phase because you can't actually boot up INTO Safe Mode when you only have the core files loaded.

I've tested this using both OS versions on the HP machine that does boot up. It stupidly allows me to get into the 'safe mode' screen; then puts up a cryptic message that it can't continue then exits after pressing OK.

I researched Mup.sys and it led me to trying some hardware solutions: I reseated the memory, tried only one stick at a time, I disabled and disconnected the floppy and CD Rom hoping see the XP Splash screen which would then have identified a faulty device.

The boot process has already loaded 15 or so system drivers before it hangs which leads me to make a new assumption that even at the most fundamental, primitive level, XP, when the core files are loaded and the configuration is set before it reboots (after formatting and installing the files), sets some parameters that are specific to the computer that was used to place the core files that only that computer or very compatible computers understand. It's the only logical conclusion (other than some freakish hardware fail on some other device that I can't detect) that I can think of.

The Hard Drive that had the version of XP that worked on the DELL (at least graphically to let us know it needed an Activation Key) must have been loaded on a machine that had more compatibility with hardware than the HP is. It is the only thing I can think of.

THAT SHOULD NOT have anything to do with it, I know, but I can't see anything else.

Compatibility should not be an issue both are Intel Machines:
HP uses Intel 845G/GV Chipset
DELL uses Intel 815E

So, I'm back to WTF again.

Nothing I do has any affect whatsoever on getting passed the driver detection stage.

 

I had a chance to play with this last night.

What you could try is to create and format the first partition on the HD as fat32. (see Note below)

Download FreeDOS installation ISO and burn it to a blank CD using imgburn's "Write Image File to Disc" option.
Then with the HD installed in your HP boot from the FreeDos CD and install FreeDos on the HD. (I used the default options (including writing a new MBR to the disc) except for one of the last screens where I enabled Smartdrv from the list of about 7 options.)
Test that the HD boots to FreeDos.
Move the HD to the Optiplex and put the WinXP CD in the tray.
Start FreeDos and get the drive letter of the CDROM from the information on screen.
Type the command D:\i386\winnt (Where D: is the drive letter of your CDRom.)
When asked for the location of the Windows files change C:\ to D:\
Begin setup. (I had a solid two minute pause after a few files were copied but it then went to the progress bar for copying the rest of the files. So give it a few minutes to see if you get to the progress bar.)


Note: I already had my HD formatted to FAT32 for the FreeDos installation but you may need to use the Xp installation CD to create/format a FAT partition that will hold both DOS and XP. DOS has to go on C: so it has to be the first or only partition on the drive. After you create and format the fat partition using the XP CD, it will go immediately into installation and start gathering a list of files to be copied, shutdown before any copying so the partition is still empty and move the HD over to the Optiplex and use the FreeDOS CD to install on the newly created C:/FAT partition.

Note2: After installation of XP and it is up and running we can worry about changing the partition to NTFS or changing the bootloader (boot.ini) to get rid of FreeDos.

 

Thanks for that ... its more than out of the box solution.

I know that the end of the world is near.

It's 2012 and I'm STILL messing with DOS and FAT32 something I was happy to leave behind in the early 90's

If I could go back in time, I would take rod and spank Steve Jobs until he was black and blue!

(I met him three times by the way.)

In 1993 there were two competing Operating Systems.

I'd be Yelling. "I'm from the Future! Don't you dare let that pile of crap that's running as a BACKGROUND process in your Operating System get the better of you and become the most popular with the most Market Share and Acceptance!"

http://erik.doernenburg.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/nextstep.png

In other words, you'd better figure out how to win that race or else!

I'll see what happens. I have to format the FAT32 from the XP disk.

I also have a Ubuntu CD gonna try that too.

 

An update:
Well, that didn't work.

Used XP disk; formatted the HD for FAT32. The format command completed but the machine was hung, so maybe there's something to that went wrong there.

Put the DOS 7.1 disk in and it said it could not find the HD (it's present in the BIOS and it did say it was formatted)

So now, I'm installing windows AGAIN full version so I can get a legit DOS prompt.

I tried to switch CD's when I got into the recovery mode to use the sea tools but it was a no go.

Using sea tools I want to see if I can't determine if there's something wrong the HD and then try erase it and then format it.

I stopped myself in my tracks with the Ubuntu Install. I realized if If I can load Umbuntu I could also load XP and so that died.

Then I thought about installing Ubuntu on the HP and migrating over to the DELL but Ubunu couldn't mount the hard drive. I'm guessing the FAT32 failure, but as I am writing this, in theory, I should be able to run with no HD present.

I think Ubuntu's v11 is too beefy for that old machine.

The saga continues.

 

If you put the XP CD in the HP and begin install. You get to the screen where you select the partition. Delete all existing partitions. So you select D for delete and then in the next screen L to confirm.
Then you're back to a screen to create a partition. Create one and format it to FAT.

When it is formatted you will see a line at the bottom of the screen that says Getting a list of files to Copy. Eject the XP CD and put the DOS CD in the tray. Shut down the computer using the power button. Power up and boot to the DOS CD. Try to install.
Then put the HD and XP CD in the Optiplex and try to run the winnt command.

 

In my last post if DOS installs (still on the HP) then reboot without CD and make sure DOS boots on its own before putting the HD and XP CD in the Optiplex.

The other thought if you have Ubuntu start it in Live (Try it out Mode--NOT install mode) on the HP and use Gparted (it is on the Ubuntu CD) to create and format the FAT32 partition on the HD. Then install DOS. Make sure it boots on its own. Put HD and XP CD in Optiplex and try winnt.

 

Hi,
Thanks again for the reply. Isn't this fun? I mean that in a good way. This computer prob is so far out of reality for me it's almost comical now.

I don't know what XP disks you have, but I have I've 4 of them (btw, I always Delete and Create a new partition when I want don't want to preserve an previously intact file system,) and none of them has the option to format a Hard Drive with the FAT32 format. It's either NTFS or NTFS (Quick) - Options 1 or 2.

That's been my problem, I don't have a reliable / clean (meaning I've booted to DOS / or DOS Window within Windows / or the Windows formatting option to select FAT32 which is there IF the OS comes up) way to format the hard drive to FAT32.

You might be wondering why I don't simply put the Hard Drive in the HP as a slave and format it that way. Remember these are my junk machines that I've been hassling with for a few years now and I can tell you for reasons that I can't explain, the HP does not recognize the second hard drive. No matter how I set the HD's up Master / Slave vice versa Cable select ... so I'm stuck with one drive at a time as a primary and only one machine the HP that can have the boot order for the CD first.

Like I said before... The CD with the DOS 7.1 does not have a FORMAT Command.
Windows recovery does not have the EDIT command (Hey, remember Edlin?) but it does have the FORMAT Command.

That is what I used to format the hard drive, BUT, when it was completed the machine was locked up.

Which leads me to think that there might be a possibility that the HD might have a problem. Seagate and Maxtor are now joined at the hip so Seatools should work if I get the latest bootable version, which will allow me to scan the disk for bad sectors, wipe this disk (equivalent to the old low level format) and hopefully format it with FAT32.

If nothing else I'll look for an .iso file that has a bootable OS with the FORMAT command.

 

When I try to install DOS (after going through the 5 "Next" options, just after it talks about the GNU Public License, it informs me that there is no Hard Drive that it can install the files on.

At that point in time there are four options:
1) install DOS
2) boot from A:
3) boot from C: (which obviously is not going to work)
4) quit.

Option 4 gives me a C> but there's no FORMAT command to work with.

 

Partition Wizard has a bootable CD ISO as last on this download page if you have a blank CD or rewritable to burn it to. http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

I was working with a slip-streamed XP SP3 CD but as far as I remember ALL XP CDS give you the choice to format to FAT or NTFS with both quick and full options for both. I've never seen one that only gave NTFS choices. Really I have never seen that and I have worked with quite a few discs over the years.

If you don't want to burn a Partition Wizard CD then boot to Ubuntu off your current CD and you should find Gparted in the installed programs. I've only recently used Ubuntu 11.0 disk and in that one the sequence after getting to the Ubuntu desktop would be to click the top icon on the left and in the window type gparted and then an icon will appear for gparted so click that and the program will open. It should show current partitions in graph format and right-click them to delete/create and then format.

 

Someone on the board just mentioned that there is a 32gb limit for a FAT32 partition. Perhaps the reason your Format command froze was the size of the partition you had created? If it was too large try one around 30gb and see if it will format to FAT(32). We can always adjust partition size after XP is installed.

 

correct (blowing off cobwebs) the things we forget.

As many times that i've looked at the jumper settings while messing with the cables I should have snapped to that.

The ubuntu disk didn't come up in live mode it stalled. I didn't write the error message down.

I have to do some other things, will come back to it in a few days ... again thanks so very much for your time and expertise.

 

Ubuntu is terrible at booting old machines. It's pretty bad at booting some new machines. IMHO :-D

Parted Magic is a small basic Linux that just has the very basic troubleshooting tools. Partition software (Gparted and testdisk), internet and FF browser, and file manager to retrieve files off the HD to write to a flash drive or external HD. This older version (v. 5.10) boots on almost any machine that I have tried. It might be a handy disc to have around. I find it the one Linux distro I grab for most often when I need a quick look around a broken system.