Can't Finish Installation Of XP

Hi,
I recently bought I PC which came with no O/S on it but apparently was intended for use with XP Media Center. I have XP home and I've been trying to install it but when it gets to the windows loading screen towards the end of the installation the bar just keeps going forever and never stops.

Any Ideas?

 

Hi, and welcome to Major Geeks :major
My first question is: did you boot to the XP Home install CD, format drive C: and start a clean install? If you're trying to reload 'over the top' of Media Center without formatting, you're likely to run into all sorts of problems.

 

Yes, I did do a clean install. Still couldnt get past that screen. I've read that sometimes having large hard drives might cause problems with installation which might be the case here, I'm not really sure.

 

i haven't heard of that, but if you think that is the case, have you tried partitioning the h/d and installing the os on your smaller partition (say 20-30 gbyte)?

 

Try running a memory diagnostic and a hard drive diagnostic. Go to your hard drive maker's web site for their diagnostic tool, for memory testing, try this:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Microsoft_Windows_Memory_Diagnostic_d3955.html

 

Well right now i put in an order for the original recovery disks, so hopefully those will work, if not I'll report back to you guys

 

Ok so guys got my recovery discs, put them in, seemed to be going well until it got to the 3rd disc, it was going good, a timer even appeared as to when it was going to finish, it hit about 55% and then I got a BSOD saying:

stop 0x0000001E (0xc0000005, 0x804DBD38, 0x00000000, 0x00000030)

any ideas? I looked it up on microsoft support and it says it ranges from outdated drivers/BIOS to faulty memory.

 

you might want to try what dlb suggested.

 

Did that, hard disc was fine. but on the memory one, things were going great, each test said it passed, but on the third on it kept booting down every time I did so.