Windows XP Installation Problem

[lwlim]

Hello,

I'm trying to install Windows XP on my AMD Athlon 1.4Ghz machine with 512MB ram but with no luck. This machine has Windows 2000 professional installed by default. I’m installing by booting the cd. The installation stopped while the screen is displaying "setup is starting windows" or something like that. I’ve encountered this problem every time I tried to install Windows XP. I've also tried other way of installing like running the setup program on windows 2000,whether I'm choosing installing as new installation or as upgrade, I just got the same problem where the installation is displaying "setup is starting windows" or something like that.

Please help me

[Mike817]

I had a similar problem the first time I installed XP. I was on the phone with M/S for over 3 hrs. It all come down to the fact that I had an anti-virus program installed on my pc. I had it disabled but M/S tech support advised that it needed to be uninstalled until XP was up and running. I did that and it worked and it has worked on three more installs since. Hope this is of some help to you.

[HAL9000]

How long are you waiting when it says "Setup is starting Windows"? I'm not sure what it is, but sometimes it takes a few minutes to leave that screen and continue with the setup. It doesn't seem to be relevant to CPU speed or RAM. On my own machine, it sat there for a good 3 minutes.

[lwlim]

Hello,

I've tried uninstalled Norton Antivirus on my computer and re-run the Windows XP installation again,but the same problem still exist . I've been waiting for the screen where it says "setup is starting windows" for more than 20 minutes!!
Here's my pc spec,I think it might be hardware problems
MSI K7T Turbo Limited Edition Motherboard
AMD Athlon 1.4Ghz
Kingston 512MB PC133 SDRAM
Maxtor 30Gig Hdd
MSI Geforce2MX 400
Creative Live Value soundcard
Imation CDRW
50X cdrom
2 D-link DFE538-TX 10/100 Nic

Please help
Thanks

[Mike817]

You might want to call MS XP tech support and let them walk you through your problem.

[GaryRouth]

Hi lwlim

That's a great board. Did you get the "red rose" mainboard?
...

Anyway, it's probably been a while since you had to think about the
Kt133a's chipset problems with SoundBlaster cards and IDE transfers.
So I'm the Ghost of VIA Past: reminding you that large IDE transfers
(like installing a new operating system from a CD)can hang and have
data corruption until you get things going long enough to install the
latest 4-in-1 drivers (actually, you probably Won't need the 4-in-1 with
XP: use the native XP drivers....but you might try:

Try the install again with the SoundBlaster uninstalled and out of
the case.

Let us know if that works.
...Gary

[p.s. ....the problem actually involved the 686b SouthBridge & motherboard
Bios settings, as well as the SoundBlasters. You could also check to see
if a newer Bios is available for your board. But if you haven't flashed
a motherboard bios before, make sure to read & follow the directions
Very Carefully! or your board could be a goner]

[TSN]

I had this exact problem. I had to uninstall the video card drivers and turn of all advanced power managment settings. I also diabled my LAN card. Worked after that.

[HAL9000]

Wait... I might be blowing smoke here outta my butt, but it seems to me that I read somewhere about an installation problem with Win2k and/or XP in combination with certain GeForce cards. The solution was to use a different card for the installation, then when it was done, swap back to the Geforce card.

[GaryRouth]

Hi again all

lwlim, I was re-reading your posts just now and noticed the line about
Win2kPro "installed by default".

I'm a little confused (I do confuse easily, I admit). Did you build the
PC yourself, or a friend, or is this made by a major brand? Some of them
do funky things with strange proprietary partitions and such (a post by glc
tipped me to one on the Dells, I think it was)... So... that might/might not
cause installation problems, too. Also, are you trying the install as a
dual-boot?

If you're not trying to dual boot, and it is a major OEM box, and you have
already backed up the files you want to keep somewhere, you can always use
fdisk (or MaxBlast) to wipe the drive clean & start your XP install with
the bare minimum (perhaps including a different video card, like Hal thought
of ... and definitely at first without any sound cards ...and remember to
keep the on-board 686b sound disabled in the bios)... But this is more labor
intensive, as you'll be re-installing your programs.

One more thing to consider if you decide to wipe the drive clean & start again:
is the XP an upgrade edition? If so, you'll want some proof of the Win2k
around (if you have the CD, no problem). If you have only a ghost disk-image,
I'm not sure the Upgrade edition will accept that. If you have the ghost
"recovery disk", your proof-of-purchase of Win2k is the I386 folder on your
hard drive (I think ... so you might want to double-or-triple-check all this)

Hopefully you've already installed successfully and I've just gotten some
keyboard exercise
...Gary

[lwlim]

Hello

Finally I got Win xp installed today
My solution is very simple,I just flash my bios to the newest version and boot the Win xp cd to begin installation,the installation process went very well without any problems.Thanks for everyone's help

Thank you.

[framerw47]

Thanks for posting the solution. I've been having the same problem on my cousin's computer.