MCE2005 will not clean install. Help!

[Fleabus]

Hi:

I'm stuck at the blue "Starting WindowsXP" screen.

I've just built an XP Pro SP2 system with the same motherboard, CPU, memory, HDDs, floppy drive, PSU,
video card and sound card. SATA HDDs not RAID.

The XP Pro SP2 install went without a hitch. BIOS and XP saw my drives, no SATA driver floppy needed, I formatted C:
during the install, installed XP and formatted/partitioned the rest later.

For the MCE2005 install the BIOS settings are identical.

If I skip the F6 3rd party driver option as before, the MCE2005 install loads its files but stops at the
blue "Starting WindowsXP" screen. No disk activity.

I tried every flavour of SATA drivers available from Asus' Make Disk utils.
When I F6, the drivers are taken, loaded but I still get to the same blue "Starting WindowsXP" screen.
No disk activity.

MCE2005 System:
Motherboard: Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI X16
CPU: Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Dual Core S939 Toledo
HSF: Zalman CNPS9500 LED Copper CPU Heat Sink 92MM Fan
RAM: 2GB (Corsair XMS-3500LL PRO 2GB kit) PC3500 CL2/1T
CASE: Antec P180 mid-tower case w/4 120mm Antec TriCool fans
Drive Bay Fan Controller: Thermaltake Hardcano13 5.25in multi-function
PSU: Enermax Liberty EL620AWT 620W Modular PSU ATX12V v2.2
Video Card: ATI Radeon X1800XT 512MB PCI-E Dual DVI HDTV-OUT
(component & S-video OUT to 36” Sony Wega XBR-400 NTSC HD ready TV).
Tuner card: ATI TV Wonder Elite Theatre 550 PRO PCI
HDD: 2 x 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 7200RPM 16MB
Burner: BenQ DW1655 Lightscribe DL DVD+RW16X16X8 DVD-RW16X16X4
CDRW48X48X32 DVD Burner Black W/ SW
FDD: Mitsumi
Sound Card: Turtle Beach Montego DDL 7.1 S/PDIF optical OUT to
Denon AVR-3802 7x110W based HT System
Microsoft Remote Control w/USB receiver OEM for MCE2005.
Mouse/Keyboard: Microsoft Remote Keyboard for WindowsXP MCE
Etc

Note: The MS Remote and Remote keyboard aren't connected yet.
I'm temporarily using an old Logitech PS/2 cordless keyboard and a Logitech
PS/2 wired mouse until I have the system up and running.
The keyboard works ok. Haven't progressed to a level where a mouse can
be used so I don't yet know if it is ok.
BTW, I'm using component OUT from the ATI video card to the TV and
that works ok.

Also, my oem MCE2005 came as 3 discs. MCE2005 disc 1 and 2 plus a third
Updates for version 2005 disc.

Anyone offer some ideas on what may be going wrong?

Thanks in advance,

[pam123]

I think you may have gotten the install itself wrong.
It's disk 1 then disk 2 then disk 1 again ( I know and the install instructions aren't clear on that).

[Fleabus]

Hi pam123:

I didn't get any instructions for the install of the MCE2005 O/S.
Just a booklet on how to make the cabling connections etc.

I'm booting to Disc 1 to start the installation.

I am not prompted to insert Disc 2.

The installation stops very early in the process, actually one
screen after the immediate "Press F6 ..." one.

The one that says "Setup is starting WindowsXP" which makes no sense.

At this point there is no WindowsXP to start.

I'm expecting the page where it wants you to create (partition and
format) C: so it can load the massive amounts of files that constitute Windows onto a HDD.

Afaik, the prompt to insert Disc 2 would come sometime after I've created C:
so there would be a place for Disc 2 content to go.

I tried switching my SATA1 and SATA2 cables in case there was something
wrong with the HDD it was trying to install to but ... same result.

I don't know what could be wrong.

Do you (or anyone else) have any other ideas?

TIA,

[glc]

Remove all cards from the box except the video card, disconnect all drives except the main hard drive, one optical, and the floppy - and disconnect all peripherals, especially *anything* USB. Get Windows installed, then introduce the rest of the cards and devices.

[pam123]

If glc's instructions don't work then we start checking the CDs and hardware for failure.