XP hangs on format

I am doing a fresh install of my system and I cannot get past the formatting portion of the process, it hangs at various points of the format, mostly very early on(2-5%). I have tried two versions of windows XP and it does the same thing. I ran an auto nuke with dban and it said it completed but found non-fatal errors, I tried both Xp installs again with the same result. I am wondering why the hell it is doing this.

maxtor(serial ata) 160gb/7200 8mb buffer HDD
asus(a8v deluxe) via k8t800 pro socket 939 ATX mainboard
amd athlon 64 3000+(socket 939) retail
sapphire(radeon 9550) 256mb ddr tv out/dvi/8x AGP
512 pc-3200 DDR sdram 400mhz 184 pin non ECC

 

I tried deleting and recreating a partition, I tried installing it with just an unpartitioned portion, and this was a full format.

 

it just hangs endlessly at 2-6%

 

Do you mean strip hardware? I pretty much just have the basics.

 

Chk here http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_install_windows_xp.htm

 

I have installed both of these versions of XP on this computer before, succesfully. I managed to get past formatting when I first intended to do a full reinstall but got kernel panics and what not, so and so is not installed messages(perhaps I should have written them down for reference here). Now it will not get past formatting, I don't think it is supposed to take 2 hours to get to 4%.

 

Do you have a floppy drive installed? Have you treid the old way of just using fdisk to wipe the drive and then trying to install windows normally, without creating the partition within xp's setup bootloader?

 

The Kernel Panics would indicate some kind of hardware issue or resource conflict. What prompted the reinstall? Was the machine locking and/or randomly rebooting? If so you may have a memory problem. I would try removing the memory modules and cleaning the contacts and replaceing them in the machine. Be sure your properly grounded while handeling the memory.

 

fdisk, I will try that. I have a sata raid hard drive, would it be compatible with that?

the OS started glitching up, hard drive not detected messages prompting multiple startup attempts before logging in properly.

What would these memory modules look like? I have limited experience with the hardware.

 

Memory modules are your "sticks" of ram you have installed in you system.

If you have installed a SATA drive in your system AND NOT used a sata driver to install windows. Then the fdisk solution should work. It has worked for me. But, it is just something to try.

Does the BIOS see and recognize the drive?

 

I was looking for fdisk on the web and I read that it will not work for XP. My motherboard required a floppy with sata raid drivers I believe, so I don't know if it will work regardless. Do you have a link of where I can download fdisk?

how do I check if my BIOS recognizes the drive?

 

I removed the ram and made sure everything was clean, put it back in and now I cannot get video from monitors, I tried 3! I tried another ram slot and it did the same thing. No signal is all I get.

 

If you have more then 1 RAM module try running just 1 at a time and see if it comes back

Also make sure you have it in in the right direction. There is a small notch in the bottom that fits around a bump in th slot. Also make sure it's snapped in all the way. The 2 retainers on the end will close on the RAM by them selves when it is fully inserted.

I hope you were properly grounded while handeling the RAM

 

I only briefly skimmed this thread, but check all your Bios settings and make sure everything is detected correctly.