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Windows XP Setup Problem (please help)

A

awef

n00b
Joined
Nov 8, 2002
Messages
20
My friend just assembled a new computer and to his knowledge has conneted everything correctly. Abit NF7-S board, ATI 9600XT I think, 2 sticks of 512 RAm, floppy, CD, and HD. What happens is that he boots up, bios detects everything correctly, so he sticks the XP cd in there and reboots.

Then he gets this message:
"setup is checking your hardware's configuration" and it just hangs there and doesn't do anything.

He has used this XP cd to install on previous PCs so it's not the CD. I have suggested swapping individual parts (ie ram, vid card, etc) to see if it's a hardware issue, but beyond that I don't know yet. If anybody has any insight into this problem please help (like it's happened to you before or you know someone who has). Thanks in advance.
 
....will the hard drive pass the manufacturer's own diagnostic software tests?

....will the system run Memtest86+ with no errors?

Start there - B.B.S.
 
How long ago did he use the CD to install XP on his other computer? Could it have gotten damaged?

If that isn't the culprit, try running Memtest (memtest86.com), a memory diagnostic that runs independent of Windows or any other operating system. Do it overnight, and see if there are any errors. If there are errors, then test each stick of 512mb RAM separately to identify the exact stick (or stickS) that is defective.

(edit: I must type slow or something. By the time I respond to a topic, one of the [H] gods has already gotten to it first. =P)
 
Just ran diagnostics. They waited for the windows thign to finish and it couldn't find the hard drive. Ran HD diag and it couldn't find the hard drive either....

But bios detects the hard drive, albeit after a long time (but it shows in in the bios screen). HD is a WD 80 gig. Don't know what to do now. Anyone?
 
Is it a new HD? When my hard drive starts disappearing from any application, it's usually because it's about to bite the dust...

You said your BIOS detects the harddrive (after a long time). Can you hear the hard drive click or spin at all?

If your HD is under warranty, it sounds like RMA time...you took proper ESD precautions, right?

That's a weird situation, though. I haven't ever experienced that in the relatively few computers I've worked on.
 
alright, more info.

Apparently he didn't put it in cable select. It's a new drive so I doubt it would be failing, but you never know. Without the CD hooked up to the IDE chan, it detects the HD very fast. But with both of them hooked up (one in each channel), it takes about 5 mins to detect on the post screen. The CD drive works because he could run diagnostics cds from it. So now the issue is, is it a HD problem or something else? I am having him run diagnostics on the HD to see if it detects it now that its in cable select, but where would I go from here? Or if you already know what might be wrong, that would be helpful as well. Thanks for all the help so far.
 
nm, it's fixed. It was the cable select.

However, he removed the floppy drive and that's what was apparently causing the 5 min delay...don't know what that's about. Maybe bios boot ordering? He has it cd->hd->floppy so i duno. Regardless it's installing windows now. Thanks for the suggestions guys.
 
Floppy drives are nothing but trouble. I never install them in any system, whether it's a customer's or my own computer. The only reason to have one is if you have a RAID array that you need to install Windows on, and that's stupid to do in the first place.

There is usually a BIOS option for "Report no FDD to OS", turn it on and it should kill all the waiting times associated with places where Windows looks for a FDD.
 
Oddly enough, I had this same problem when setting up my nf7-s. It took forever to detect the IDE devices the first few times I started up. I left it alone a few times, it eventually detected the drives and booted.
After a few times of this, it magically stopped doing that, and has worked perfectly ever since. My theory is that the dust bunnies that infiltrate PCs got inside and started working their dust bunny magic to make it work so I would shut the case up and leave them be.
 
awef said:
alright, more info. Apparently he didn't put it in cable select.
Click to expand...
....uhh, my understanding is that you don't it in cable select; set it how it will be run. Although, I guess pragmatically if it boots reliably it makes little difference......

Party On - B.B.S.
 
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