Errors when installing OS on newly built computer...

[BrownsDawg]

Hi
I just bought some parts and built a new computer, using an MSI KT3 Ultra, an Athlon XP 1900+, and a Maxtor 40gb 7200rpm HD. I also have a GeForce2 Pro in as well.
When I tried to install the OS, Windows XP, It got 100% through formatting the partition, but then froze when it started to actually install XP. It has done this exactly a few times, and has even reset one other time instead of freezing. When it doesn't get this far, it often says "error loading operating system" and for a little bit was giving me the message "NTLDR is missing".

What do you think the problem is? I tried switching from a 300w power supply (thats in there now) to a 400w, but it did not help. I tried switching the RAM, 2 working sticks of pc2100 DDR and pc2700 DDR respectively. I know the CPU is fine, the temperatures are nice and stable, never reaching over 35 C. Basically I think its either the hard drive or the motherboard, but which I am not sure. I'm not really sure how to check this, either. I do have my old hard drive but do not want to format it, as I had planned to make it a slave and retrieve alot of old files from it.

Any help would be greatly greatly appreciated...the parts are from newegg, so at least I know I will get good customer service if I have to return them.

~me

p.s. Is that 300w ps good enough for this rig? I've been told by a # of ppl that it is. (theres also a cd-rw and dvd drive in the system as well, along with the fans, but thats all i put in so far to minimize conflicts).

 

[DaiShan]

300watts is fine as long as it is a quality psu from the amd approved list. have you tried swapping the ide cable from the hdd to the controller with a known good one? same for cd-rom, which cd drive are you trying to install off of? are you sure it is good? make sure that all cables are seated properly in the drives, I have a cd-rom that the cable keeps trying to sneak out of on me.

as for testing the hard drive, use the drive diagnostic software that came with it (if it was oem you can download it for free from maxtors site.)

 

[compudog]

I have had a lot of trouble installing an OS from a Samsung 24/10/48 CD/RW. Didn't matter which OS I tried (Win98, WinXP Home) Changed my RAM, changed the CPU, changed HDD etc. Finally I popped in an old Compaq 8X CD-ROM and the OS installed fine. I then swapped in the Samsung CD/RW and all works just dandy. Just a thought.

 

[BrownsDawg]

Well, to clear up a couple of things, I have a cd-rw and a dvd drive installed and have tried using both to install the OS. I also cleared the CMOS to make sure there weren't any conflicts. And lall the drives are connected firmly and the IDE cables seem fine.

I did try copying the i836 file to the hard drive and installing from there, as suggested by a friend, and it stopped copying from the cd very quickly because of "insufficient disk space."

This seems odd....does this point to a HDD problem any more clearly?

~me

 

[Maggotry]

This is probably a long-shot here, but a friend had trouble installing XP on his system. It would give the same error about loading the operating system. Strangely, he finally got it to load by disabling the CPU's L2 cache in the BIOS. After the OS was installed, he re-enabled it and it's been fine since. Strange, but worth a try I guess. BTW, he said it was VERY slow with the L2 disabled. He was also using a 1900+ CPU.

 

[BrownsDawg]

well to add to this insanity the Maxtor diagnostic test came out fine, at least the first few I ran...

hmmmmmmmm

~me

 

[BrownsDawg]

Ok, some weirdness to go over:

I formatted the HD, created a new partitition, and copied the whole i386 file from the WinXP cd to my hard drive. Then I ran winnt from there, and it started setup....well it got to the screen where it says "Please wait while setup copies files to your hard disk" but it just sat there and did nothing. This is similar to what had happened before, so I threw my hands up in the air in disgust and went to eat dinner. Well, I came back 40 minutes later, bent over to restart the mofo, and all of a sudden it actually STARTS copying the files! It took it 40 minutes to start doing that! What the heck is it going so slow for, and will I be ok as long as it just completes XP installation, no matter how long it takes?

One thing to note is that I directly went into the BIOS and made sure S.M.A.R.T. was enabled...but as I started XP setup, it gave me a notice saying SmartDisk is not enabled and I should turn it on before running setup as it will make the process run better....I re-checked to see if it was really enabled (by the way, SMART and SmartDisk are the same I'm assuming...) and re-started the setup but it gave me the message again, so I just went through with it.

Could the fact that this SmartDisk or SMART is not being registered as being enabled be the reason why its going so slow, and will this cause any problems in the overall installation?
(its about 25% done copying files now)

~me