Can't finish WinXP install on new computer

[Vlorg]

Giga-Byte GA-K8NF-9
AMD 64 3000+
2x512 Kingston DDR ValueRam
Thermaltake 480w
Sapphire Radeon x600 Pro 128 MB

most recent Bios
no overclocking

I'm putting together a new system for my neighbor and when I start a CD boot of windows the first time the computer restarts during installation it freezes at "verifying DMI pool". I tried the following: switched memory that has been tested, used different empty hard drive (both IDE), tried different power supplies, tried installation using a windows 98 boot disk, tried booting using two different hard drives with windows XP already installed ( windows would just begin to load and the computer would restart with both), flashed the bios. None of this worked except one time when I managed to finish an installation of windows (using a CD boot) the first time I turned computer off to connect other peripherals (mouse, NIC card.etc..) then turned it back on it still froze at "verifying DMI pool".

During all this at one point the power supply suddently shorted! (note that I had tested the sytem with 2 other power supplies (Antec 480w and the stock case 350w) with same results) Well I RMA'ed the MOBO and the power supply. Just put the thing together again and the same freeze point occurs.

Only two things I can think of left are the video card or the CPU. I do not have another video card to test ( it's my first PCI-express build). Looking to get an old PCI card to test. I do not have any other compatible CPU's laying around either.

HELP !!! any ideas??

TIA,
Vlorg

 

[mechBgon]

Welcome to the Forums If the hard drive happens to be a Western Digital PATA drive, and is the only drive on its data cable, make sure it's jumpered for Single Drive rather than Master or Slave. Single Drive is when there's no jumper cap on the pins at all, for WD's.

 

[Vlorg]

Hi, thanks for the welcome !

The hard drives I have tried are Maxtor and Seagate (both PATA). The each had their own cable and I had tried both Single/Master slave and Cable Select with both.
I'm not sure about the two hard drives I had tried with WinXP already installed but both of them acted in the same way (computer resetting as soon as Windows started to load). They were both PATA as well. I know it's not really fair to the new computer to get it to take another systems hard drive. Could they be restarting like this because the New MOBO/Vide card is PCI-e and the hard drives are from AGP systems or could this problem be related to the "verifying DMI pool" freezing problem?

If anyone can rule out the following or at least let me know what is more likely the problem then please let me know:

1. Bad CPU
2. Bad video card
3. Bad windows disc resulting in bad installation

 

[mechBgon]

Oh, I missed the part about WinXP already being installed on the hard drives prior to the new mobo WinXP doesn't like new motherboards unless they are using the same mass-storage drivers, at the minimum. It may be possible to do a repair-installation and have all your stuff carried over, but the best method is to do a fresh installation, as you already know.

To do a repair installation, you would start Windows Setup from your CD, and press F6 to give it your drivers on a floppy if needed (for Serial ATA drives, I think you might for that model of Gigabyte).

Windows Setup will soon ask if you want to Repair or Install. Here, you choose "install." It will get some drivers from the CD, you agree to the EULA, and then it shows the partitions on the hard drive.

Now you choose to install to the existing C: partition, and Windows Setup should see the existing Windows installation in C:\WINDOWS and ask if you want to repair it? Now you choose "Repair" and it will go through the motions of installing Windows, but will try to keep your programs and data too.

Unless your WinXP CD has Service Pack 2, you will probably want to keep the computer isolated from networks (wired or wireless) until you can either patch it with Service Pack 2 offline from a CD or USB drive, or at least enable your Windows Internet Connection Firewall (this is renamed to "Windows Firewall" in WinXP SP2). Windows Help can show where to enable the ICF if you need a hand finding it.

Hope that helps Also, it may be beneficial to raise your memory voltage to +0.1V for stability.

 

[nukexbi]

Try booting those other drives (with XP on them) in safe mode. Might just be the hardware change that is causing them to freak out. You could also try a repair install on one of them if you don't need it for another system. ***Edit, see above on how to do this

Try these ideas on your Maxtor and/or Seagate.

Try an fdisk /mbr from the windows 98 disk or a fixboot and fixmbr from the recovery console on the XP cd.

Did you reset the bios?

Try disabling the CPU cache in the bios then boot to any cd or floppy disk. You should see:
Verifying DMI Pool
Update successful
Then reboot and enable the CPU cache again.

Try turning PnP off in the bios.

Just brainstorming some stuff to try.
-Scott

 

[Vlorg]

Sorry mechBgon, I wasn't very clear in my first post. I have 4 hard drives total trying to get to work. The Maxtor and Seagate are both clean (the Seagate does NOT have Dynamic Drive Overlay). Out of frustration I just tried to use two OTHER hard drives with XP already installed. When trying in Safe mode they still restarted. They restart at the exact time when the splash screen comes up ( I even saw it for about 1/4 second once).
Those two drives are for existing systems so I don't want to try a repair. I could try installing XP on one of the clean drives from another computer and go from there.

This is the first time I have worked with a Giga-Byte MOBO and this particular model seems to have a pretty skimpy selection of BIOS settings (I'm used to ABIT and Asus). I do not see any options to disable CPU cache or turn PnP off

I did try using fdisk and format from the Win98 disk instead of using the XP cd. I have tried fdisk /mbr as well. I'll try the recovery console.

I cleared the BIOS a dozen times and even reflashed it with the first MOBO.

Thanks for the help so far !

 

[imported_IoCaster]

Try underclocking with just 1 stick of ram until you get XP installed and incrementally clock it up after you get all of the peripherals in place w/drivers,etc...

I had a similar type of problem getting XP to install at first until I took those steps. YMMV