Blue screen everytime I try to reformat?

[Jtardiou]

I have tried 2 legitimate windows XP CD's, tried on 3 harddrives, no matter what I do I get a bluescreen before I am given any choices to reformat. I'm about to pull my hair out!!

Does anyone have any idea? Only the DVD-Rom and HDD are on the IDE.

Could it be something with the DVD-rom? It works fine as far as I can tell (run games, music, etc)

 

[GaryJohnson]

no matter what I do I get a bluescreen before I am given any choices to reformat.

Can you be more specific about where it BSODs? Before or after which setup screen?

If it gets as far along as the screen where it asks "To repair a windows XP installation using recovery console, press R." You could try doing that and running a "format drive: /FS:file-system
" (where "drive:" is C:, D:, E:, etc & "file-system" is FAT32 or NTFS) command at the prompt to see if that works any better.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Sounds more like a hardware issue. e.g. mobo, memory

 

[Jtardiou]

Originally posted by: GaryJohnson

no matter what I do I get a bluescreen before I am given any choices to reformat.

Can you be more specific about where it BSODs? Before or after which setup screen?

If it gets as far along as the screen where it asks "To repair a windows XP installation using recovery console, press R." You could try doing that and running a "format drive: /FS:file-system
" (where "drive:" is C:, D:, E:, etc & "file-system" is FAT32 or NTFS) command at the prompt to see if that works any better.

Before. It does it while it is setting up. So I really don't have many options..

Regarding it being a hardware issue. As far as I know, everything works fine. This rig is fairly new (built it this year) and has been working perfectly.

I'm really out of ideas, i've tried everything 🙁 Could the mobo be doing this even if it works just fine doing everything else?

 

[mpilchfamily]

Most BSOD are memory related. So i would run the system threw Memtest and see how it goes. I suspect you'll need to replace the RAM.

 

[zerocool84]

It would help if you posted your comp specs. Also I've heard that if you have a pre SP2 or SP3 XP version that it will blue screen upon reformat on newer motherboards. Don't know how reliable it is. I had a pre SP1 XP disk and it blue screened on me trying to do a fresh install on my new system in my sig. I just went with Vista64.

 

[Jtardiou]

Originally posted by: mpilchfamily
Most BSOD are memory related. So i would run the system threw Memtest and see how it goes. I suspect you'll need to replace the RAM.

Hey, I've tried TWO different versions of memtest

When the computer boots, it says:

"loading................."

then restarts. everytime. what is going on!?!

Is there a similar program I can run through windows?

 

[Slugbait]

Got Iomega for that DVD-ROM drive? Put it on its own IDE ribbon.

Seriously, it would help if you posted your comp specs. A lot.

 

[Loop2kil]

most likely the memory is bad...also try different cables for the hd and cdrom.

 

[eddiebravo]

this is an issue with the mobo and bios being too new. solution: put in the windows xp cd, boot from cd, as soon as the screen comes up where windows starts to load all the system files, start pressing F5 and keep pressing it. it should eventually bring up a menu saying that setup couldnt determine what kind of system you have or something like that, and then allow you to choose. you will probably only see two options: "standard pc" and "other". HOWEVER, use the up arrow to scroll up and you will see other options. find and select "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC". you are basically just forcing windows to choose the proper HAL file. now you should be able to install just fine.