Having LOTS of problems installing XP, errors everywhere

[DGath]

IC7-G
2.8c
gig HyperX
2 x 120 gb SATA Maxtor


I can't get through an installation of XP Pro and it's driving me crazy. Basically, I just get "Cannot copy file..." errors throughout the installation (typically about two per install). I think I've tried about 6 times now and the same thing every time, except it is never the same file that can't copy over. I've tried taking my drives off of RAID, tried using both CD drives for the install. Tried installing one both hard drives when each was the only one on the system at that time. I updated my BIOS to ver. 18 and it helped a little bit in getting rid of some of the errors, but they are still there. I've reset the bios settings to fail-safe defaults and that doesn't help at all.

Is my motherboard jacked? I'm lost on what to try next.

Happy thanksgiving everone.

 

[Twista]

Your ram is probably jacked. Try another stick of ram. If you have two sticks of ram than use one stick of ram and try to install and if that dont work try to use the other stick, and than try switching the ram to another slot on the motherboard.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Try Memtest86 to diagnose your RAM.

Memtest86

 

[DGath]

Ok, I'll run memtest and see if that tells me anything. Would make sense with the instability during installation. Although, I just managed to get through the pre-install part of it "The only blue screen that copies files for about 10 min." and when it restarted and booted to the XP installation screen, it gave me a "data cyclic error" or something, telling me my CD was jacked. I looked at the CD and there are two tiny tiny scratches, nothing that should cause errors. I cleaned it anyways and I'm trying iti again.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Also, sometimes damaged data cables can be a problem.

 

[sandorski]

Try relaxing your settings. Lower ram settings, underclock cpu, etc. Hopefully that will get WinXP installed.

 

[DGath]

I'm running memtest now and it's gonna take a while, another hour or so. It's 41% done and it has found 43,000 or so errors, that's not normal is it?

 

[silentScope]

Have you tried using a different copy of Windows XP? Could the something wrong with the disc... If you bought it you can still use the cd key you bought just try a different physical cd...

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Try relaxing your settings. Lower ram settings, underclock cpu, etc. Hopefully that will get WinXP installed.

On another note don't install the OS on an overclocked system!!!

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: DGath
I'm running memtest now and it's gonna take a while, another hour or so. It's 41% done and it has found 43,000 or so errors, that's not normal is it?

Ahh, no! 43,000 errors is more than too many, hell, 1 is too many.

 

[DGath]

Well I finally quit the test after it topped 400,000 errors. I'm trying the testing one stick at a time now.

We'll see how this goes.

 

[DGath]

stopped after the first stick was at 10,000+ errors. Hopefully this one won't have any errors, if that's the case, then I know it is the ram.

If... this one does have errors too, is it possible it could be motherboard? It seems unlikely that both ram stick would be jacked up, but I guess it is possible.

When I was building it, there was a problem with the fan controller and the wires fried. It wasn't the wires from the power supply to the controller, but rather the cables from the controller to the fans. Thermaltake sent us a replacement cables and it's all good now, but could that have had any effect on the motherboard?

Oh... 2nd stick errors just popped up, so it's probably the motherboard then? Just RMA both the memory and the mobo back to NewEgg to be sure?

 

[Bovinicus]

Originally posted by: DGath
stopped after the first stick was at 10,000+ errors. Hopefully this one won't have any errors, if that's the case, then I know it is the ram.

If... this one does have errors too, is it possible it could be motherboard? It seems unlikely that both ram stick would be jacked up, but I guess it is possible.

When I was building it, there was a problem with the fan controller and the wires fried. It wasn't the wires from the power supply to the controller, but rather the cables from the controller to the fans. Thermaltake sent us a replacement cables and it's all good now, but could that have had any effect on the motherboard?

Oh... 2nd stick errors just popped up, so it's probably the motherboard then? Just RMA both the memory and the mobo back to NewEgg to be sure?

I somehow doubt the fried wire incident is the cause of your system's instability right now. I'm not saying it's impossible; I just highly doubt it.

Most likely your problem is the motherboard. Your CPU could also be the reason for the errors, but the motherboard is a more likely cause.

 

[DGath]

Originally posted by: Bovinicus

I somehow doubt the fried wire incident is the cause of your system's instability right now. I'm not saying it's impossible; I just highly doubt it.[/quote]

Yeah, I really doubted it as well, just thought I'd ask though.

I was never able to enter the SiL RAID setup at the beginning, the one where it tells you to "Press F4 or CTRL + S." I'd sit there and poung away at those keys and nothing ever happened. So I wondered about the motherboard from the beginning.

 

[yhelothar]

your PSU could be causing intereference to your ram too

 

[Bovinicus]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0
your PSU could be causing intereference to your ram too

He's right. Power supplies are often overlooked as the cause of system instability.

Overall system temparature could also be the cause. I have a friend who needs to have a full-sized fan blowing into the side of his case with the panel off to maintain stability.

I still say the motherboard is the most likely cause. However, if RMAing the motherboard doesn't resolve your problem, try getting ahold of a different PSU. Also, try getting ahold of a different CPU. CPUs are rarely defective, but it does happen occasionally.

 

[nick1985]

try a different CD rom drive. i had the same problem once, and it was my burner crapping out on me

 

[DGath]

Originally posted by: Bovinicus

Originally posted by: virtualgames0
your PSU could be causing intereference to your ram too

He's right. Power supplies are often overlooked as the cause of system instability.

Overall system temparature could also be the cause. I have a friend who needs to have a full-sized fan blowing into the side of his case with the panel off to maintain stability.

I still say the motherboard is the most likely cause. However, if RMAing the motherboard doesn't resolve your problem, try getting ahold of a different PSU. Also, try getting ahold of a different CPU. CPUs are rarely defective, but it does happen occasionally.

Knowing the problems PSU's could cause, we went ahead and got a Antec Truepower. While it's always possible it could be bad, it's very, unlikely. But I'll definately consider it if nothing else we try works. I have a nearly identical computer (this one screwed up is my dad's) so I'll bring my computer back sometime and mix and match components and try an figure out what exactly problem could be.

This is aggrevating. We'd bought the system a month ago, had to send back the RAM cause it was incompatible, then had to wait for the fan controller cables to come, and then I had one hell of a time getting the RAID to work because A-Bit doesn't have the correct RAID drivers to install XP. Now we keep on getting these problems and are unsure as to what could be causing them. Grrrrr....

 

[DGath]

I've tried installing from both the optical drives in this system. Same errors with both.

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

Got a friend with a P4?

Start swapping components and really find out whats wrong, because everyone is just speculating and speculation costs you money.

 

[DGath]

Looked on NewEgg and couldn't really find the info I was looking for. What's their RMA policy? I saw that it was 7 days (or something like that) on processors, but what about everything else? Is there a time limit?

 

[kuritadelta]

It's usually because of a bad ram.
"BAD Ram" doesn't necessarily mean a ram that won't work.
You have to understand that with Windows OS, it is sometimes picky with what kind of ram it likes.
Depending on the other hardware, you should get "certain" kinds of ram.. but generally windows are more picky than Unix.

If you have a cheap brand ram, I suggest borrowing a brand name ram(crucial, mushkin, corsair, etc) from friend or from another computer just for the XP installation. After installation completes, you can use your non-brand name ram to run it.

I've had many experiences with a cheap ram giving error during the install only.

Next most usual supects are: you have a bad XP media or bad CD-rom or even a bad IDE cable.