Repair install stops with 34 minutes left.

I have two repair installs on the go at the moment and both have stopped making any progress at the 34 minute mark.

Formatting and reinstalling is not really an option because I dont want to lose all the client data that is on the machines.

Is there anything else I can do that may get past this stall point?

 

Do you get any error message? If so text and numbers would be a help for us. What OS are we talking about?

 

No. No message, no errors just plain stuck. One has been there since Friday and not budged an inch. The other is a relative newbie with only 6 hours on the clock so far.

They are both XP Home machines.

 

You could have errors on your install CDs. Are they from the same product series? Is there a serial number on the boxes? Then Google it...

 

Two XP Home disks suddenly developing errors? What are the odds on that?

 

So you have used exactly these CDs before. These are not two new ones with the same error in the same series from the same factory. At times the same error is repeated on all disks from the same shipment/lot. A systematical manufacturing defect.

 

correct, on other machines they have worked without incident

 

When you say client you mean that in the sense of the word costumer? In this event the Administrators and Moderators usually look in on the thread and give us a hand...

 

yes, customer

 

One way might be to install another windows operating system on the same partition, in a different folder. That way, the original installation and all its data will still be there.

 

Same problem. Even wrote 0s to the MBR on HP oem machine. Was XP home multi media edition and put xp pro, or at least tried to. Always stops at 34 minutes left.

 

Thos blog post might interest you: http://techtracer.com/2007/03/12/xp-installation-the-34-minute-hiccup/