XP-Pro Install Problems

Discussion in 'Software' started by jayboy67, Oct 15, 2003.

  1. jayboy67

    jayboy67 Private E-2

    I don't know if I have sw, hrdwr, virus or between the ears problems or all of the above. Very carefully read all I could find on guides for installing and thought I had myself prepared but???? This is a long post but I couldn't describe what all has been happening in the last 24 hours without going into the details. Maybe one of you will spot a fatal flaw in my process that I can't see for the trees.

    I installed my clean, from the box, WD800JB, and booted from the XP CD. At first the XPP Setup format would hang at 20% so after over 30 minutes and no discernable HDD activity I rebooted then for some reason things got better and started getting past the 20% and not sure what I had done to cause it. I had been in and out of the BIOS to see if I could find anything that might give me this problem but didn't change anything except the boot sequence between drive types. I did try the safe setup and the optimize setups with the same results. It then seemed like everything was going well until the auto reboot came up. It had gone thought the formatting and coping all the files to the disk. It did reboot, load some more files someplace and welcomed me to XPP, then the next screen tells me that another operating system is recommended for the same partition and wanted me to decide whether to proceed or not. I did and the next screen tells me that I have to partition for the install of XPP but that I would loose all those other files. I think there were 5 choices between FAT32, NTFS, and going ahead and leave the other OS intact on the drive. In the course of the night I tried every option given with the same results. Stuck in the loop always going back to the above right after the reboot.

    Also made the mistake of leaving my old HDD with WIN ME from my old computer hooked up as Slave. During the install it modified something that keeps it from booting when put back into the Master position. Luckily I had another old drive with current WINME on it that I put in and are now running on.

    When it reboots both drives were recognised and in the right sequence, master and slave. I did start getting a POSToption change somewhere in or around the time of all of this installation activity. It says press DEL to go into Setup and that works OK. It also says to press Alt-F2 for AWDFlash.exe which is the Award BIOS flash utility downloaded from ABIT. This message at POST is new in the last 24 hours. I think before it had said to go to F8 to start WIN in safe mode. I did do the flash-16 about 4 days ago and had no problems since that I can pin of the BIOS except this POST message. When I did the Alt-F2 it went into DOS and asked me for what program I wanted to run (something like that). After many times around the holding pattern I finally in frustration put my ABIT flash disk in but it said it couldn't find it in A:. Didn't try that again. After trying every option in the partitioning I finally got my WD program out and booted into it's floppy. It seemed to be happy with whay it saw, gave the opportunity to go back in and delete the partition that XPP setup left and let me size and format them really quick and easy. I then rebooted without the floppy and CD out and there was a WD menu poped up after the post that gave me a selection to install XP which I picked, then it told me to put the XPP CD in and as it was getting started an error message popped up saying NTDLR is missing and to reboot. Not sure what that file is. Then I went back to XPP install and they now recognized the 3 partions I had made but would not let me out of the loop of selecting a partition and another OS etc.

    I can't say things have gone great today either. I have had trouble just booting into WIN ME everytime until I finally went in to msconfig and disabled everything that wasn't essential. I think I found the problem, the HP printer drivers were causing the reboot into WIN ME freeze ups. So I don't have to print anyway! I don't know if there is something wrong with the USB hub, the printer or just the printer sw. Not worrying about that this minute but is going to have to be addressed soon.

    The BIOS, POST recognizes the 2 HDD's but when I call up Explorer I can not see it and the first CD is assigned that drive letter, D:.

    OK I think I have layed out the progress so far, negative, all of it. I need some help in figuring out what could be the root cause of cascading problems. SW, HW, HDD, Mobo, BIOS, virus or Me. I need to figure out how to get this new drive recognized by the OS. It is in the slave postition now. It was in Master position when I was trying to setup XPP. In slave now just so I could look to see if it was formatted and had any windows files on it. Will I have to into DOS to partion it and format the partitions? I need to format it cause XPP setup doesn't seem to know how or something.

    By the way is everyone getting a lot of emails with viruses attached? Norton seems to be catching a bunch in the last 2 days, like almost 50% of my email seems to infected and a lot of that is this scam saying Microsoft has critical updates and to click on their link to get it. I am in the process of dumping my old ISP to get a new email address (and hopefully better service). The spam/virus emails have picked up substantially since I started visting all of the message sites looking for answers even though I sign up not to let my email address go public. Not sure where but someone is getting my email address and it could well be from some friends and relatives that refuse to run any kind of virus program or never ever update them.

    In Summary:
    1. What is causing the XPP setup failure
    2. How do I get the HDD formated properly
    3. What do I need to do next.

    Thanks for putting up with this long post, hope it makes sense to someone.


    .

    ABIT IS7
    Corsair Twinn 512
    IBM 16.4 gb HDD (temporary until I get the WD 800 installed)
    Floppy
    Artec 52x24x52 burner
    Artec 16x48 DVD/CD-Rom
    Windows ME (until I can get a good format and install on WD800)
    ATI Radeon 7000 w/64mb and TV Out
    7 fans total
    Small boat anchor to keep it on desk
     
  2. jayboy67

    jayboy67 Private E-2

  3. DOA

    DOA MG's Loki

    Long posts are not a bad thing!

    Lets start at the top...
    Do a clean install with a minimal system.
    cut the system back to one hard drive and a CDROM. Preferably on seperate cables. Set the boot order for floppy, CD, harddrive. Of course no overclock or voltage changes. I assume you are using an adapter from the hard drive to the serial connection. Tape on the IDE connector, they are infamous for being loose. Might as well tape the serial connection too, they can fall off the drive.

    Get the latest RAID driver from Abit
    ftp://ftp.abit.com.tw/pub/download/fae/disk121.exe
    Extract the driver to a floppy.

    Boot the Win XP CD.
    As soon as you see blue, hit f6, hit it a bunch, nothing will happen. But you have to do it to install your RAID drivers.
    Insert the driver on the floppy disk when asked if you want to install additional devices.
    XP should see the one drive on the RAID.
    Format it for NTFS with the XP setup.

    XP is not reliable for setting up on all CDROMS. If you have problems and another CDROM try it. You may have to fail an install or two to get one right. All part of the XP learning curve.
    When XP is finally at the desktop, put in the MB drivers and use Windows update until it stops updating.
    If you get that far you are pretty much home free.
    Post if you hit a roadblock at any of those steps.
     
  4. jayboy67

    jayboy67 Private E-2

    Good Advice

    DOA, my thanks for the advice, it worked. Got XPP up and working but still having some stability problems in particular when I am downloading an update to something.

    Some of my problem after installing was I have Norton 2002 and the virus data base was somewhat dated and I guess I missed one when I went on the internet to do their live update. As soon as I was updated Norton told me that I had been infected by w32.welchia.worm. Down loaded their removal tool and seem to be clean now after a complete scan of my new and old disk. It is a worm that attacks XP and 2000 but not ME. That is the first time ever since 1990 that I have had a virus. I had a computer built up in Redondo, CA and the dealer had a set of copied OS disks that had been infected and that was what he formatted my HDD with. I sat there in his shop one night after work and opened the shrink wrap on the new OS package and reformated and loaded my own computer. Oh well!

    I have had several freezes this morning while downloading, No warning, just freezes half way through the download. No way to get out of it either except turning off the puter. Has also had a couple of freezes when starting a program. Any thoughts on this problem? I am currently trying Earthlink and I did load their Total Access 2004 but I also had the same problem when I went to my old ISP with just IE 6 without going through Earthlinks sw.

    Thanks again.
     
  5. Johner

    Johner Private First Class

    when u get WD harddrive, if this same problem come up again, check IDE cable. Sometimes, it doesnt allow harddrive and motherboard to communicate each other well. if your getting new round cable, get ATA100 since your WD hd and motherboard are both ATA100. When I tested ATA133 on intel base, funny things happen then switch to ATA100, funny things went away, so.... Also same on cdrom or dvdrom, ide round cable need to have ATA33 included. I remember NTLDR error relating to this.
     
  6. Kodo

    Kodo SNATCHSQUATCH

    make sure you get all the new patches for XP.. this will help protect you from viruses like welchia that find their way in through an exploit in windows.
     
  7. jayboy67

    jayboy67 Private E-2

    HDD WD800JB seems to be doing good. So quite I can't hear the head seeks like on my 6 mo. old WD40 and it isn't that bad.

    I finally was able to get to MS and did all of the security updates. Surprised me that I stayed connected for about 1hr 10min. but it worked.

    All of the important updates to programs and drivers are now downloaded and installed. Could I ever use a high speed connection. No DSL or cable in my rural area and I have a bunch of trees that block line of sight for sattellite. Also more than I want to spend on it.

    I am still have freeze ups and most of the time it is the middle of a down load. I am on my old and trying earthlink and I alternate between them to make sure its me and not them. When it freezes nothing can be done but reboot on the case. CAD doesn't do a thing and I have waiter 5-6 min. to see if it would come up.

    Thanks for the advice and inputs.:D
     
  8. DOA

    DOA MG's Loki

    Glad you got this far, I really cannot help with a dialup.
    You might post what browser you are running and whether your lock ups go blue screen. Does ctrl-alt-delete do anything? Give the task mamager a good five minutes to come up after a lockup.
     

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