Serious problem putting XP onto computer...help :(

Right, me and my mate have just tried building a computer and its worked good so far but now were are tryin to put windows onto the computer. We are currently using the old hard drives from the other computer so we still have windows and linux on those hard drives, we understand that because weve changed quite a few hardware components so the operating systems dont load anymore even though they are still on the hard drives.

When putting the windows xp pro disc in it loads up and stuff and i boot the computer from the disc drive but once its doing the setup it seems to stop at random points in it, usually rather early. We have tried different cd's and different cd roms in that particular computer and it just wouldnt work even when changing IDE cables.

Then we tried it in this computer and it worked quickly and fine lol We took the cd drive out of this computer and then tried it on that one and it still wasnt getting very far.

Can anyone help please?

Thank you
Hope to hear from you soon xxxx

 

is it that much of a problem that no one is going to reply? very baaaaaaaad i see

 

yes..

im in a computing class right now though and everything should be right, ive successfully built a computer many times. I even had my mate here who is a pro at computers and we seem to have done everything right, i shall take pictures and post them on here later, the screens may helkp you. My uncle said its probably a hardware problem.

Ive also changed the hard drive and that doesnt work either...this is a disaster

 

This is the screen shown when the computer boots up
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/Tazzy14/computer/DSC05106.jpg

This is the second screen
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/Tazzy14/computer/DSC05108.jpg

When i restart the computer with the windows disc in the master CDROM I press F11 which takes me to the boot menu, i choose the CDROM
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/Tazzy14/computer/DSC05038.jpg

Once windows setup starts up..it shows this type of screen
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/Tazzy14/computer/DSC05045.jpg

but only gets to

• Kernel Debugger DLL
• IEEE 1394 bus OHCI Compliant Port Drive
• PCI Bus Driver

Especially the Kernel and these are the error messages that have come up
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/Tazzy14/computer/DSC05080.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/Tazzy14/computer/DSC05084.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/Tazzy14/computer/DSC05082.jpg

I know its not the motherboard, graphics card, processor (hmm not sure) and fan because I was sold that all together and they have worked together before. The RAM is brand new and the motherboard says that its compatible. The hard drive well...Ive changed the hard drive and checked and its given the same results so it not that, the CDROMs we changed round and it not that. We even changed round the IDE cables and checked the BIOS.

Please, one of you is bound to know this complex thing, ur all awsomely clever. Any suggestions welcome, dont care if they are guesses, its worth a try

Thank you

 

Are you using a "burned" XP installation disk?

I would choose one hard drive and make it the primary master, and whichever of your optical drives that you prefer, and make it the secondary master. Leave the other hard drive and optical device unhooked. Remove all memory except for the minimal required. Make sure that your optical device is the first boot device selected in the bios.

Then I would download this and 0 the drive with it. http://www.majorgeeks.com/Dariks_Boot_and_Nuke_d4596.html. Try the installion of XP again and see if it works better. Hope this helps!

 

The problem may be that there is already an O/S on the hard drive with a different serial code, so windows refuses to eliminate it. This should be fixeable with deleting and remaking the partitions, along with a format of the hard drive.

Just a guess

 

Thanks for your reply, i did think about that but then again, because its a different serial code. I thought they may have two different Windows XP Professionals underneath eachother and may give the user the chance to choose which one (if there was no partition made of course)

I must admit, i still dont know much about partitions, could you tell me how to delete and/or remake them? the cd freezes before I get the chance to do anything, it just goes straight into the setup.

Thanks again

 

Try using DBAN.

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

It's a tool that you can put on a bootable media and it "nukes" your hard drive and kills everything on it. Then you have a clean hard drive with nothing on it. Since there's nothing on it, the old XP installation will be gone as well. The next time you try installing XP, you can use the partition manager included with the CD. Seeing as your friend and you have done this many times before, you should be able to easily figure out how it works.

As for other ways of doing partitions, there are free tools such as Cute Partition Manager and Partition Logic, and there are also pay ones like Acronis or PartitionMagic.

EDIT: Oh yeah, you have to be careful with DBAN because it automatically seeks out every hard disk and wipes the whole thing.

 

Ive heard of Partition Magic, we did it in class not long ago.
Your star m8, ill give that a try

 

id like everyone to know that I have figured out the problem and it is the RAM. I replaced the RAM with a known working one from college and also did a memory check. windows is going on fine now

thank you for all your help. Maybe this may help someone else in the future with their computer problems. Shame i had to work it out the hard way lol

 

Well, it doesn't surprise me that the RAM could hold things up. I had an occasion that I could not use Adobe Elements because every time I tried to start it, it would crash the computer. Turned out I needed to upgrade the Audio drivers (and it was a brand new computer - I had to get updated audio drivers from the chip manufacturer). Moral of the story being - if it is a computer, it is a prime candidate for Murphy's law. Remember, along with the computers ability to speed us to completion of our tasks, it also permits us to make mistakes faster than anyone ever though possible, and to lose larger quantities of extremely important information than could be believed.

Glad you found the problem, sorry we couldn't help, and thanks for posting your results.

 

:wave

 

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