BIG problems installing Windows XP Professional

[dud]

I posted this in another forum (since I thought I had a hardware problem) but most of the replies I received were totally worthless. Here goes:

OK, I am in the process of re-installing XP Professional on a system with an 80 Gig that previously had XP pro on it - but the HD had an "Unmountable Boot Volume" error that I could not recover from. Well, I wiped the drive clean and reformatted it. I then boot from the Win XP CD and the blue screen comes up with the message that it is loading all the required files. OK, so everything is fine, right? Well, the message "loading Microsoft Windows" comes up (as always) and then after about 10 seconds or so the screen goes black and the system goes into a coma forever. I try this again and again but the same thing happens. I then tried installing Win 2K pro and the same thing happens.

I know I am NOT unique and am hoping that at least some users have encountered and successfully conquered this prob. PLEASE let me know how. Please reply or send PM if you can help. Thanks ....

 

[igowerf]

I'd put the drive into another system and run a thorough scan disk on it.

 

[loup garou]

If scandisk comes up clean, try running setup with a different vid card (PCI if you have one).

 

[videobruce]

Try wiping the drive with the manufactures "write zero's to drive" utility.
Is this NTFS or FAT32?
Any DDO software?
Do you have another drive you could try?

 

[geekender]

Be sure that when you boot into the text portion of setup (blue screen) you choose the option to delete the current partition (the sequence should be "d" then "enter" then "L". Then choose to format your drive, do not choose quickformat because it will not check the drive for errors.