XP Home Setup Problem

[Paul Stoops]

I am a new user and have been impressed by the quality of the responses to inquiries.

I am attempting to update a computer with a clean install of XP Home. I have flashed the bios with the latest version for my Asus K7v133 mobo. I have 512Mb PC133 ram, a WD 4Gb HD which has been reformatted, and an ATI Rage 128 Pro AGP video card.

I had tried unsuccessfully to load XP Home from the CD several times and always had the computer hang up at the "Setup is Starting Windows" message.

I reformatted the HD and tried the technique suggested by Morriswindgate on 12-26-02 using a Windows XP Custom Install Disk with only partial success. After booting off of the Custom Install Disk, the files loaded to the HD okay and the computer rebooted from the HD. However, it is now hung again at the same Starting Windows message.

I have looked at the Microsoft KB article on this subject and didn't really get anything out of it that helped me. Could be lack of understanding, however. BTW, what is a "mass storage device" that is referred to in the MS article?

So here I am with a beautiful blue screen with a cryptic message at the bottom that isn't really telling the truth.................

Any help you folks can offer will be most appreciated. Looking forward to some enlightenment!

Thank you,

Paul Stoops

[fatboyjim]

How do you know it hangs at that moment? i.e. How long have you left it hanging on?

Try a RAM test, DocMemory from www.simmtester.com works well

Jim

[ktkendall]

This may help to strip down to nothing but the essential components, Sorry if this is redundant of what you have already tried. I've even loaded the OS and disabled everything onboard from the BIOS first, like USB and onboard sound, just to get the OS up and running smoothly, then add devices one at a time so as to pinpoint the troubling device. What file system are you formatted in??

[Paul Stoops]

I have left the computer hung at the Windows Starting message for at least an hour with no change.

I have removed all devices except the CD drive and the video card. Since the Custom Boot disk is formatted in MS-DOS, I assume the files copied in a FAT32 format on the HD.

[ktkendall]

At this point my guess would be something amiss with that hard drive. You can get drive utilities from the WD website to check the health of the drive. I believe what they refer to as mass storage device can be a hard drive, and as suggested above memory could be the trbl. Because it hangs at same spot everytime and can not go past it, that is what leads me to suspect harddrive though.

[Paul Stoops]

Another gremlin. I just tried to boot from the XP Home OEM CD and it gives me back this message:

"The entry "ntkrnlmp.exe" in the [SourceDisksFiles] section of the INF file is corrupt or missing."

Are we having fun yet??

Paul

[ktkendall]

Could your CDROM drive just need cleaned or the disk itself be dirty?? That would make sense too that the files are not all actually copying onto the harddrive properly, thus making Windows unable to start.

[andyms18a]

your windows xp cd is damaged return it to the shop and get a new one

[Markoman01027]

See if you are able to test the power supply on another machine.

Run the RAM tester like the users suggested.

Run the WD Diagnostics utility(Should be on the CD you got when you purchased the drive) and see if the drive is healthy.

How many Slots of RAM do you have filled? Perhaps you can try running only 1 stick of RAM.

Your XP CD could be damaged, as it cannot transfer some files it needs to run. I have had this happen before, but with WIN98SE. I was installing WIN98SE, and once the setup was done, it was asking for a lot of VXD files and a lot of .DLL files that they said they are found on the WIN98SE cd, so I did a search for them on the 98SE CD and it wasn't able to find the files... So I formatted the drive, and put in another 98SE CD and the setup went successful.

I would try everything what the users suggested. If you are still unsuccessful, your hard drive could be bad, RAM could be bad(as since you are getting lockups when you are installing, etc) and possibly your XP disk.

Have you tried copying the XP setup files from the CD into the hard drive? I have seen this trick work on some machines based on the posts that I read here on PCMECH.

Good luck and post back with the results!

[Paul Stoops]

Hi folks,

Apparently the RAM was the problem that prevented the setup.

I purchased a new OEM XP CD and had to buy some hardware to qualify for OEM, so I picked up a 256MB stick of RAM. I removed the old RAM and installed the new one and booted off the new CD. It went into Setup immediately and installed without a hitch.

Fortunately, since Microsoft now requires the XP OS to be tied to the individual computer, I can use the original XP CD to upgrade a second computer.

Thanks to all of you who were kind enough to take the time to help me out with your suggestions. I really appreciate the help.

Have a wonderful day! Mine is now a whole bunch better...........:-)

Paul

[Markoman01027]

Congratulations Paul! Glad everything is running nice and smooth!

Post back or perhaps start a new tread to get more attention if you run into anymore problems!

[andyms18a]

are you shore it was the ram let us now when you try the old cd agen

[fatboyjim]

I would be interested to know about the RAM too. Perhaps you can get DocMemory from www.simmtester.com make the disc and test your old RAM??


No worries if not, just curious

Glad to see you get it sorted

Jim

[Paul Stoops]

Hi folks,

I used the Simmtester s/w to test my PC133 256MB RAM sticks. The new one (of course) and one of the old ones tested okay. The third old one installed alone gave me some interesting results: The first time I just got regular, long, intermittent beep tones without going into POST; the second time it would not even let me boot the computer-- just a black screen with a white bar across the bottom! So, I wasn't able to test the defective.RAM stick.

I won't have an opportunity to try out the original XP Home CD for a while, but I'm willing to bet that it is okay. If not, I'll post another message with my latest adventure.

Thanks again to all of you for your interest and timely help, encouragement, and sharing the available resources. Messing with these computers can tend to be somewhat frustrating--particularly when you don't really know what you are doing...:-)

Paul

[fatboyjim]

Seems to me like you have a pretty good idea as to what you're doing!

Good luck for your computer future And happy new year!

Jim