Probs installing Win XP

Can one of you's technical guys here at the forum help me to install win XP Pro. I am at my wits end with trying to install this.

I just built a PC about 6 months ago and installed win 98 SE, everything works fine, so I thought to myself wouldn't I be the smart bloke on the block who could run two operating systems on the same machine - Duhhh how wrong I was.

I have tried everything. I used partition magic (great app) to make a second partition of 8 GIG and then set about installing XP into that partition. I even made a bootable cd. Everything goes ok up until a point where it says its installing the network components, here it just hangs forever with no sign from the power Led to indicate that it's doing something. LOL it even says its got 33 minutes left to install - after 10 hours of waiting. I've even fdisked and formatted the whole drive again but to no avail and my last resort was to fdisk and format again and do a clean install of XP on its own - still now joy, It always hangs at the installing network.

My system consists of;
Shuttle - space walker AK31 Socket A Mother Board
AMD Athlon XP 1600 +
512 MB DDR
Operating System Win 98 SE
Radeon 8500 DDR Graphics Card
Creative Sound Blaster Platinum 1.5 sound card
40 Gig Maxtor ata 133 7200 Hard Drive

Thanks in advance

 

Is it possible the cd or something is corrupted at that part? Maybe it isn't the partition.

Just a guess.

 

Really sounds like a (ahem) bad copy (cough, cough).

 

Raider, that is a friend of mine with a legitimate copy of the OS who is having a problem installing it. Some people DO have problems and come here for the help, not the sarcasm. If you can offer some help, it will be appreciated. If not, maybe someone here with more knowledge than you can help out.

 

I am well respected here and elsewhere and just thought maybe that could be the problem. No need to take it personal and go off.

It's not like that kinda stuff doesn't go on. Please accept my apology.

Scouse has the best idea so far.

 

Yeah guys sorry for any hassle, it's a legit copy of xp that I have, and the funny thing is - it works ok as I've installed it onto another machine.

Scouse - you said "remember you have to install Xp first then 98" I thought it was the other way round. You have to have Win98 installed then XP? as XP then recognises that you've got another O/Sysytem installed and go's about setting up the boot manager ect ect.

Im afraid I'm still stuck guys

 

thats right other os first
XP will detect other OS and set up boot manager. You said yu made the CD bootable, maybe sometihng when wrogn in reburning process

 

See if you can borrow a friend's XP disk. It isn't illegal, since you own a liscence and haven't got an installed copy. The liscence never says you have to install from the disk you own.

Have you tried single-booting WinXP? that should tell you if it is WinXP or something else unusual.

Have you tried removing any network cards/disabling any onboard netowrk devices?

BIOS update?

maybe try moving PCI cards around. PCI slots share IRQs by default, and maybe they're conflicting. Usually (it varies my manufacturer) 2 & 4 and 3 & 6 share. 1 shares with AGP, and 5 is unshared. Windows reassigns them (IRQ management) but this is the most common setup.

 

Mmm I did do a clean install whereby I fdisked the H/Drive, formatted and set about installing XP from the origonal cd, still no go, as it still stick or freezes around setting up network.

I havent tried romoving any PCI devices such as the graphics card and the Sounblaster card, If i did and it installed, would that mean that I wouldn't be able put my cards back in, as they both work great with Win98?

Bios upgrade - no, don't want to go down that road

cheers

 

You may also disable some devices in BIOS like Serial and Parallel if you don't use them. That would free up some IRQ resources. I would really consider another network card too. Is the one you're using onboard?

Something else to consider is try the Compatability Wizard (should be an option when you pop it in assuming you already have a OS on the hard drive) on the XP CD. That could show exactly what is going on. The downside is you would have to reinstall 98 to try it.

 

I don't actually have a network card, so I'm assuming that it must be onboard/intigrated with the M/Board.

To be honest I haven't tried the Compatability Wizard, I though it would be an easy install of XP an that would be that, but I guess nothing is ever that easy is it?

I'm going to have a mess about with it 2morrow and see what I come up with.

Where abouts on system properties would I find anything to do with Network, the only thing I can see just now is "Network Adapters" and when thats opened up there is "Dial-Up Adapter"

 

probs inst xp

Please try ,i know!!!With your start disk. choose start pc without cd-rom,enter ,in promt type fdisk ,enter ,type yes for large hd ,no for FAT 32 then you will get FAT 16 file system.Yes ,with create DOS partion or logical drive,enter,select create primary DOS partion,enter, you have choose FAT16 and will get 2GB hd to be assigned to drive c ,yes, no you can get customize. and so on. Press ESC to return to the options menu and ESC to promt ,type format C: or format c: \s ,enter yes so on. Now install Win 98 . when 98 start menu is displayd ,choose start pc with cd-rom support ,enter,.When finish restart the pc. Now install. xp from cd drive choose new install. (advanced) ,nekst, xp will find a partion and you can named it D choose FAT 32 as file system (you can always change to NTFS for xp) but with 2 systems 98 and xp Fat is the best. :Restart your pc when finish. When start you will get a menu where you can choose which system you want to start ,if you dont choose ,the start will be with xp.Best regards oldi.

 

so, Oldi, what u just suggested was for him to wipe his hdd, repartition it into 2 partions (both fat32), install Win98, then, once in Win98, install XP (from the windows environment), to the other partition?
I think that should work, but, since you are having problem with one part of the installation, im not sure if the problem is being able to install it, its just that XP is having a problem.
What I would do first is to try another copy of XP, if available.

My $.02

 

Update -

Ok I finnaly managed to install Win XP, after hours of installing, formatting, deleting partitions, removing pci cards, disabling and asking for help from the pro's.

For some stupid reason unknown to me the answer was in the bios setting. In the "Advanced Chipset Features" I selected the "AGP & P2P Bridge Control" and changed the AGP Mode from 4X to 2X, saved setting and rebooted. XP installed with no probs at all, why the decrease in AGP Mode would affect the installation I have no clue. After it was installed I reset the bios AGP Mode back to 4X - Everything works like a dream now...

Well except that I cant setup an internet connection, when using the interenet connection wizard, I go through all the steps and get set up connection using my own details, I press next and instead of it being "Dial-Up" it's automatically selected "Connect using a BroadBand Connection", the other two selections have been greyed out and are unable to select them.

So now the prob is how do I setup a Dialup connection, my modem is a U.S Robotics 56K Faxmodem external, all drivers have been installed for it and its recognised in the system properties manager.

Any ideas??

Thanks

 

Thanks for the info guys, I checked the bios for anything to do with networks and noticed something to do with Lan, so I'll disable that next time ive got the pc on (currently on my old one)

MA - looks like we were typing at the same time - LOL. I'll look into the bios update.

cheers

 

OK I've disabled the lan thingy within Bios, however its still not letting me connect through a dial up connection.

I went into the system properties and looked in networks, there is something called 1394 network adapter. I have disabled this with system properties, rebooted and yet the problem is still the same, it wont allow me to select dial up connection.

Im lost again

 

Well I'm still no where near fixing this problem than I was installing XP.

I've been checking up on the M/Soft support website for any clues that they might have, and they hade a few.

Going through the steps above I realised that "Remote Access Connection Manager and Remote Access Auto Connection Manager" were missing from the system manager, which leads me onto the next prob and possible fix - as I havent tried it yet.

I'll try it tomorrow

 

Another Update - Haha but the last.

Went through all the steps set out above, checked the registry and the PPPfolder within the registry was missing.

In the end I decided to reformat the partition as NTFS and do a clean install with SP1 intigrated - All works like a charm now - chuffed to bits.

Cheers to all who contributed their help. I'm off to play with my new O/System - LOL

 

heh, well done on the re-format (did that myself just recently actually... surprisingly easy to dual boot with linux i found!) Definatley the way to go...

Oh and thinking about it, since 98 doesnt have a bootloader with it (does it?) you would want XP last so it can give you the option of OS before you started one up..

But well done non the less!

 

Yeah everything is working spot on now,it all boots up and gives me a choice of wether I want win98 or XP

cheers guys