Can't Install Winxp Pro On My M70 Toshiba Satellite Laptop...

[Matt_D_Zima]

Hello eveyone,

Well, this is my fisrt time EVER joining a web forum. I had to join to ask for help on my big problem. I'm usually pretty good with PC problems, but my issue has really stumped me. I asked all my friends and they can't figure it out either.
Well, I reciently bought a M70 FE5 Toshiba Satellite from Future Shop. It's a nice laptop; it has a Centrino chip running @ 1.73 GHz, 512 MB DDR2 RAM, 256 MB x700 ATI dedicated graphics card, 100 GB SATA hard drive, and uh, WindowsXP Home with SP2. It's a nice gaming laptop but I really dislike XP Home, Pro runs a lot better and it's more compatable with like, everything. The first game I installed is one on my favorites, Max Payne, and the game just crashes in XP Home.
I decided to install my XP Pro that I have; I boot up off the CD and it starts that Windows Setup blue screen. In the bottom left corner in the grey line, shows all the components /drivers being installed and then it says starting to load Windows. This is where is stops/freezes. Nothing else happens after this.
Now, I remember this is where the license agreement is suppose to come up and you hit F8 to agree, and then the directory screen comes up and asks where to install XP/make partition for XP, but none of this comes up, it freezes before the license comes up. This CD works on all my other computers and has no problems, but for some reason, it doesn't work on my laptop. Can anyone help me out?
Please reply with any useful tips, it is greatly appreciated, thanks for your time everyone.
~Matt~

[glc]

I have a customer with a similar laptop - and it has overheating problems. This may be your issue. There's really no difference between Home and Pro - I think you need to get your games running right on Home before you think about a different OS. If a game crashes in Home, you have an issue that has to be taken care of first, and the inability to install Pro may be related.

First thing to do is make sure you make the recovery DVD - then start uninstalling all the Toshiba shovelware you don't need. Update drivers etc. as necessary, get the thing cleaned up and running lean and clean, go from there.

Hmm - just noticed - you have a SATA drive. You may need the SATA drivers on a floppy to install by pressing F6 at the beginning of Setup. If you don't have a floppy drive, you may need to go buy or borrow a USB floppy drive.

Have you tried installing XP Pro as an upgrade from within Windows? I wouldn't do this until the system is clean and tuned.

Also, we are flirting with the forum rules here - you indicate that your XP CD works on all your other computers - you need a license for each one and we are very tight about piracy and EULA violations in these forums. The sticker on the bottom of your Toshiba only covers XP Home unless it was shipped with 2 COA's, one for each.

[Matt_D_Zima]

Hello everyone,

Well first off, I appologise that I was flirting with the forum rules. It will not happen again. Second of all, I'm not sure by what you mean with 2 COA's; I don't know what that is. I'm assuming you mean it's a activation number for Windows? Anyway, the laptop only came with WindowsXP Home; it's actually a recovery CD with WindowsXP Home and all the drivers, so I don't need to make a recovery DVD.
The laptop came with WindowsXP Home that had the SP2 already intergrated into the system, and so it will not upgrade from an older version.
I'm pretty sure the laptop is not over heating; it worked when I tried to install my old Win98 SE to see if that made any differences and it did install. The only thing is Win98 SE will not run; it freezes before it goes into Windows for the first time. Only safe-mode works.
~Matt~

[glc]

If 98SE freezes, you may have some defective ram in there. You can test it with memtest86+, if you don't have a floppy drive, download the .iso and burn it.

www.memtest.org

The Ultimate Boot CD has this plus other utilities on it.

ubcd.sourceforge.net

[Brooksey2006]

I have the same laptop with the same problem. Did you find a solution?

KB