Hi

Have just put together cheapish 2nd system from old+new parts.However i can't install windows.It get's so far and then hangs/freezes/stops,etc.Wondered if the problem is with the HDD which i salvaged from an old machine.I have therefore ordered a new HDD and was wondering if there were any particular tips on installing windows from fresh on effectively a brand new machine.
Hope this all makes sense.The spec is Fiz az31 m/b,Duron 800mhz pro,256mb SDRAM,20GB HDD,Windows XP pro.

TIA

Peter Stone

 

I've had problems installing XP on AMD CPU's so it could be an incomatability on the motherboard/CPU.

Win98 will work ok.

BEst way i find is to create a Win98 startup disk if you can get hold of one, boot from this Win98 startup disk, format the hard drive, do a "c:> sys c:" copies just the system files to the hard drive (making the hard drive bootable only). Then copy the Win98 directory to the hard drive. reboot the system will just come to a "C" prompt, go into the win98 directory and run the SETUP.EXE.

the other advantage of this is that when you add progs/hardware in it automatically looks in the WIN98 directory instead of asking for the CD with Win98 on it.

This also works with NT/XP just copy the I386 directory to the hard drive.


Hope this helps !

 

Peter what hdd controller do you use? if its using a promise ATA100 controller, or similar, u might need to load in the promise drivers within the XP install. Im not sure of XP, but in win2k u can load in the HDD controller drivers before win2k starts the install.

 

I tried loading W98SE first.It loaded but only by skipping lots of files it couldn't find on the windows disk(mostly .dll's from memory)and then i would get various error messages so i thought i'd try XP instead.I've got this on my main machine which has a Athlon xp1700+ so i'm really confused now!

Pete

 

Bioforger-stupid question time.How do i know what HDD contoller i'm using?There's no seperate board so i assume it's built in to the motherboard or am i talking b****cks(probably)

Pete

 

Ok i jus looked up your mobo, it doesnt have an ATA100 controller, so forget everything I've said so far

You sure its freezing on XP install? Sometimes it seems like its bailed but is still actually working. Leave it for 10mins or so, when it seems to hang, before u decide to reboot.

Also methinks u need to format n retry XP install. If no joy, format n retry win98se install. HTH

[Edited by bioforger - 28/05/2002 11:23:32]

[Edited by bioforger - 28/05/2002 11:26:03]

 

From memory i've got 3 ports (long sockets?)-labelled primary ,FDD and HDD i think(could be wrong).Checked connections against other machine and seem to tie up.One error i got a few times was invalid system disk.Does this help?

Pete

 

I've just checked.The three connectors are primary IDE,secondary IDE and FDD.In the manual it says the board has "2 dual chanelled enhanced PCI bus master IDE connectors".Does this help?

Pete

 

Pete, not really mate no. It should just work really. Like I said start afresh, format and retry win98se. If it works, and you want to use XP, I strongly recommend u format first, before installing it. If win98 doesnt work, then I would start to think there is a hardware issue somewhere.

Also go through your bios settings, make sure u have plug n play compliant OS option on (if u have it), and check everything else.

 

Pete,

You said when you install XP, it gets so far and then it stops. Which screen does it stop at, or what was the last thing you did as part of the installation. This might point to whether the problem is hardware or not...

Chris

 

Chris
It's about half way through and it's while installing devices with about 33-38 mins to go.

Pete

 

I assume that's after it's autodetected all the hardware on the machine and you've confirmed that it's right? It sounds like it could be an incompatibility problem, so a good idea might be to check out the MS Knowledge Base which may have some news on it. Try http://search.support.microsoft.com/...maxResults=150 which is a search for XP install problems and see if any of the links are relevant...

Chris

Edited due to brain fade...

[Edited by Chris_S199 - 5/28/2002 3:41:59 PM]

 

Quick note, when installing new OS, ALWAYS do clean install, remove all cards etc except primary video and 1 stick of RAM... Disable any extra devices in bios (sound etc)... cuts down on those little problems....

 

Finally got win98se to load!Seems ok this time.

Pete